Pokemon Elite Academy
by SpacePickel
Summary: Illegal Pokemon traffic, underground battles to the death... name it. An aspiring Pokemon trainer begins his first day at the prestigious Pokemon Elite Academy, where he soon finds out about the harsh reality of this world and all the secrets his school is hiding...
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning of a Journey

For all of you Pokémon fans who want more action, more violence and more mystery! This is the life of a school boy who joins an Elite Pokémon Academy in order to become a great trainer... though the journey to get there won't be as pleasant and easy as he had imagined. Buckle up!

* * *

On top of a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm, an intense battle was raging between the Pokémon Champion and the Leader of the most powerful evil organization. Both were covered in blood, crossing swords while their last Pokémon were giving it all they've got to defeat their opponent. It was only a matter of time before the end of this battle.

"I won't let you get away with this!" shouted the Pokémon Champion. "Your plan will destroy the whole country and every living being with it. Including all Pokémon!"

"A kid like you couldn't understand my reasons" replied the evil Leader. "I'm doing it for the greater good of this planet!"

The Pokémon Champion's swords clashed with the Evil Leader's battle axe, causing sparks to fly off and letting out a distinct metallic sound.

"Arcanine!" yelled the Pokémon Champion. "Don't let it any time to charge up an attack! Hit it with your Flamethrower!"

"Quick Staraptor, dodge his attack," commanded the evil Leader. "Then use Brave Bird!"

A smirk appeared on the Pokémon Champion's face. Determined, he ordered. "Protect yourself, then use Counter!"

As the evil Leader's fierce glare turned into despair, he stuttered. "Oh no," realizing what was about to happen.

"Oh yeah," laughed the Pokémon Trainer.

As the evil Leader's Staraptor dove from the skies at the speed of sound to directly hit Arcanine with its powerful Brave Bird, the Champion's Pokémon braced for the impact and readied itself to hit back with all the power and spirit it had left. Both trainers knew it was a risky move and that both their Pokémon were going to end up gravely hurt… or even worst. But during this short moment of hesitation and fear from the evil Leader, the Champion took advantage of this distraction to pierce his enemy's heart with one of his swords.

The battle was over. The Pokémon Champion successfully stopped the evil Leader's plan of destroying the country, and as if a miracle had happened the dark clouds disappeared in the wind, letting the rays of the sun hit the victorious trainer.

Then suddenly, a strange voice echoed from the distance. "Noooooaaaaaah…" The voice became clearer. "Noah, wake up! You'll be late for your first day of school."

I woke up in confusion, as my Mom had just brought me back to reality. It was all a dream.

"Urgghhhh… Already?" I groaned.

It all felt so real.

~ ~ ~ A Pokémon FanFiction by SpacePickel ~ ~ ~

My name is Noah. I'm 13 years old and today is my first day at my new high school: the Pokémon Elite Academy. I live alone with my mother, so it hasn't been that easy for us. I barely have any memories of my father, actually. He left us when I was still young and whenever I ask my Mom question about him, she becomes emotional, so I try to avoid bringing it up. I like to think he left in order to do great things for the world, like to fight bad guys or something like that. It makes me feel better about it. But nonetheless, I help out my Mom as much as I can with all the chores in the house, since she is always out until late at night for her job. Though we are not the richest family out there, we still have a roof and I can eat three meals a day, so I really can't complain.

This school is the most famous Pokémon academy out there. It is known for housing only the best Pokémon trainers and the most brilliant scientific minds in the world. And since becoming the world's best Pokémon trainer one day has been my dream ever since I was little, I knew I just had to go to that school. The only problem was that the tuition is very expensive, which makes it only affordable to rich kids. Because of that, my Mom had to take a part-time job in order to pay for my education. The job pays well, but she's kind of ashamed to talk about it. That's why there is a 'No Work-Talk' rule in our house, and I respect that. Considering all that, I understand that she does all of this because she truly cares about me, and I could never be thankful enough for to her.

After putting on a clean pair of boxers and my brand-new uniform, I hurried downstairs followed by my loyal companion Growlithe, who I liked to call K9.

We had been together for as long as I could remember. I have memories of us running around in the yard when I was still a little kid, and him, a tiny little puppy. My mother told me Dad used to have an Arcanine a while back, before I was even born. They both loved her very much and cared deeply about her, but unfortunately, she became very sick and eventually passed away. Both of them were devastated by their lost. So, when I was born, they decided to adopt a baby Growlithe to remind them of their beloved Pokémon. Ever since then, K9 has been my best friend and my partner in crime. We basically grew up together, just like brothers.

As I was going down the staircase, I smelled something cooking _(or rather, burning)_ , and when I arrived in the kitchen, I found my mother clumsily attempting to cook with the help of her Pokémon – Ditto – that was wearing a chef's hat, which was slowly starting to take on fire.

"Mmmmmmmm~ Are you making pancakes?" I asked, surprised. "That's amazing! You almost never have the time to cook!"

"Well, since it's a very special, I thought I could make you a very special breakfast for the occasion!" she said. She looked at the pancakes with the pan in her hand with a look of deception. "Though I think I might have burned them…"

It was the first time in a while that she had the time to make me breakfast, and even though she's not any good at cooking, I liked to little attention. So, I consoled her. "Don't worry about it Mom, they look delicious! Thank you so much."

She smiled. "You're so sweet. But wait, there's more." She winked, then turned around and reached out to below the counter. She pulled out a wrapped box and gave it to me. A gift?

"Since from now on, you'll be starting a bran new journey as a Pokémon trainer," she murmured excitedly, "I thought you might need some little gadgets to get you started."

I impatiently removed the wrapping from the box and opened it, as a pirate would open a treasure chest after crossing the whole ocean. Its content amazed me. "No way!" I shouted. "You got me Pokéballs! And what is this?" Below the spherical objects was hiding an old fashioned looking electronical object with a small screen and an antenna coming out of it. "Is that a Pokédex?!" I let out, surprised and even more excited.

"I know what your going to say," she started. "How did you get this? How much did it cost? But don't worry about any of that, it's the least I could do. I know that these days all the cool kids have access to a bunch of features including a Pokédex on their cell phones, but that's all I could afford to buy you… So, you better not lose it!"

I dropped the box on the table and instantly jumped on my Mom, squeezing her in my arms. I was so happy.

"You didn't have to buy all that, Mom," I said, almost emotionally. "This is amazing! This school isn't going to be ready for me!"

As I was still hugging her, I looked up to the clock that was hanging on the wall in front of me and realised that I was running late _(especially since I overslept)_. I gently released my Mom from my death-grip and threw all of my new gadgets in my school bag. "I should get going or I'll be late!" I said. "Thanks again for everything, Mom. You're the best. I love you! C'mon K9, let's go."

Growlithe barked happily. "Woof!"

"Okay hun," she sighed as I hurried through the front door followed by K9. "Be safe out there. I love you too!"

"Oh, this kid… Just like his father. Isn't he, Leo? And he didn't even eat his pancakes…" She took a bite of the pancakes, while Ditto was running around with its hat on fire. "I don't blame him."

~ End of Chapter 1 ~


	2. Chapter 2: On his way to School

Chapter 2: On his way to school

Noah already gets in trouble, and he hasn't even made it to school yet!

* * *

Impatient to begin my classes at the Pokémon Elite Academy, I quickly ran through the neighborhood to make it too school as fast as I could, with my good ol' buddy K9 following me not too far behind. My Mom and I lived in a little district called Rust Town. Most houses in these parts looked old and rundown _(some were even abandoned, to be honest)_ , and the people that lived around here were pretty sketchy. But I grew up in here. It was the reality in which I was born, so I got used to it _(though I admit I have seen some weird stuff…)_.

I waved at the old couple who were always just sitting on the porch in front of their house, like I always did when I passed by, then I finally reached the end of the town, where there was a secret shortcut through the Forest of Slumbers to get to the town on the other side more quickly.

I always enjoyed hanging out in that forest. There was something soothing and relaxing, yet exciting about that place, which made it unique to me. There were mainly small Bug and Grass-type Pokémon that lived around here, like Caterpie and Metapod hanging from their branches, Oddish and Sunkern hiding in the bushes, with a few Aipom and Slakoth resting in their tree. I would always run around after a pack of little Seedot and climb as high up the trees as I could to join the lazy monkeys that resting at the top. Good times.

I made my way through the dense natural paradise, trying to not disturb its peace, until I finally made it to the next district, which was called Azurite Town. It was a rich neighborhood where I never liked to hang out, because all the rich kids would bully me for living in a poor family.

I slowed down the pace, as I noticed not too far away a gang of teenagers pushing around a little boy. There was three of them, excluding the kid. One of them had a Poochyena and another one had a Houndour. They were clearly high school thugs looking to harass weaker kids to feel better about themselves.

"C'mon!" shouted one of them, who looked like the leader of the group. "I know your mum gave you some money. Just give it to us and we won't hurt you."

"Yeah, like, just give us your cash already, dude," said another one.

"B-But I need this m-money to buy a lunch," mumbled the kid, frightened.

"I know you do," replied the leader. "But you see, we also need to buy a lunch! And you know what they say… Sharing is caring!" he laughed.

The leader of the group of bullies suddenly grabbed the small kid by his shirt. His facial expression had completely changed from laughing and joking around to seriously angry and menacing in an instant. He stared at the boy straight in the eyes.

"Listen up," he declared. "You have 10 seconds to open up your bag and give us your money, or else we'll have to do it ourselves. And trust me, you don't want that to happen."

I couldn't stand to watch this any longer. I closed my fists tightly in anger and charged at the teenagers, who were obviously bigger and older than me. I jumped in and tried to push back the leader of the gang, but his heavy body didn't even budge. I yelled.

"Leave him alone! You should pick on kids your own size!" _(I was being reckless.)_

The leader of the gang looked at me, then smiled.

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here?" he sneered. "Super nerd and his stupid acolyte the tiny little fire-rat. Comin' to rescue your little friend?"

My anger was rising. No one insults my K9. _No one._

"Do _you_ have any money to give us?" he asked. "Oh wait, you're a dirty slum-dog who lives in Shit Town. Your family doesn't have even have any money!"

They all started laughing. He had crossed the line. I leaped towards him holding my fist behind me and threw him a Sucker-Punch to the face. He flinched, but quickly came back at me with a blow of his own ( _I think I may have blanked out for a second there_ ) and he knocked me down. The two other teens lifted me from the ground by grabbing my arms and held me up on my knees. I could feel the bruises on my face as my right eye become puffy and the blood dripping out of my nose.

The leader looked at me in the eyes. He seemed unscathed by my punch, which probably hurt my fingers more than his face.

"You thought you could take us all by yourself?" he spat.

As he said that, Growlithe came in, aggressively barking at the teenagers and bit the leader's leg until it started bleeding. He looked down and shouted "Fuck off, rat!"

He kicked Growlithe and sent him flying further away. "Houndour, don't let that fucking dog get near me," he ordered his Pokémon.

Scared, the young boy who was initially getting bullied started crying and ran away. As I was completely defenseless, the leader hit me with a few more punches, then threw me into a pool of mud.

"That'll serve him right," he said. He approached me and crouched, making sure to stay out of the puddle. He whispered. "Don't ever try to fuck with us again, you dirty peasant. Next time you try something funny with us or if we even see you around here, I swear you'll wake up at the hospital the next morning." Then he got back up. "C'mon guys, we're done here."

The three bullies calmly left as if nothing happened.

A few moments later, Growlithe came to me and licked my face to get me to open my eyes. I slowly tried to get up. My whole body was in pain and my new uniform was completely covered in mud. But somehow, it almost felt as if the pain was fading away.

"Thank Arceus!" I told myself. "That little boy managed to get away safely." I turned around and looked at my Pokémon. "Sorry about that Growlithe, I shouldn't have involved you into this mess, and because of me you got hurt. I just – I just had to help that kid out!"

Growlithe looked at me as if he completely understood how I was feeling. He opened his mouth, smiling, and took out his tongue. "Woof, woof!"

We were on the same page. That's why we were best buddies, after all.

And so, we slowly continued our way to the Academy, which was now just a little further down the street, both completely disregarding our injuries and the fact that we smelled like shit.

~ End of Chapter 2 ~


	3. Chapter 3: The First Day

Chapter 3: The First Day at the Academy

Noah finally makes it to school and makes a new friend. Pokéballs are already flying around at the prestigious academy...

* * *

After having limped for a while, we finally made to the Pokémon Elite Academy. And when we arrived, I stopped for a moment as I looked at the campus. I was amazed. Unable to move, mouth wide open and stars in my eyes.

The school yard was so big that it probably would have had enough space for all of the houses in Rust Town and even more. The whole campus was filled with trees and wild Pokémon running around everywhere. The school's main hall was an impressively large historical building, which had a gothic, mysterious allure to it.

The school was truly at the edge of mankind's accomplishments with extremely advanced and sophisticated technologies. The whole school was completely powered with renewable energy sources like wind turbines that were placed all over the campus. There were many high-tech scientific laboratories where students and professionals performed research for science and Pokémon and many more awesome things.

But what surely impressed me the most was behind the school's main building. There were more than twenty huge glass bubbles that each contained a unique biome, such as dry deserts, tropical rain forest or icy taiga, and they were meant for trainers to battle in all kinds of environments. They were called the Pokémon Battle Domes. One of them was even completely filled with water, with aquatic flora and minerals all around in order to practice underwater battles while completely submerged.

When I saw that, it felt as if my injuries had disappeared, so I started running towards the PBDs with a huge smile on the face.

I immediately started looking more closely at the magnificent Battle Domes, which had extremely realistic environments, and I wondered how they managed to re-create so accurately the different terrains. My attention quickly shifted to the sounds of a crowd cheering in the distance. I turned around and saw that something was going on inside of the Dome #17. As I got closer and closer, I realized that there was a battle going on _(My first time assisting to a real Pokémon battle ever! Except on TV, of course…)_. I switched to the second gear to make sure I wouldn't miss anything, because I was so excited!

"C'mon K9, let's go see what's going on! We can't miss out on this duel!"

Many people were gathered around the scene to witness this semester's very first Pokémon Battle between students. The chosen PBD was rough and rocky battlefield, where you had to be careful with every step taken if you didn't want to get hurt and where you absolutely needed to stay alert of your surroundings.

It also happened that the two trainers dueling were first year students. And I have to admit, they seemed very skilled for kids as old as I was _(me who had never really dueled before)_.

The first trainer was a boy, tall and slim, very elegant looking with his blond hair combed back. He had a confident and intimidating expression on his face, as if he was certain no one could ever beat him. His chosen Pokémon was a Charmeleon, with sharp claws, a strong build and which also had the same expression he had.

The second trainer was a girl _(A girl, fighting? I sure as hell was surprised!)_ of average height, but who definitely seemed older than her age. She had long black hair and bright pink eyes. Her beauty was stunning and her look attitude charmed everybody in the crowd. Her Pokémon was an Absol, which was swift and gracious, just like her trainer.

"Wow!" he said out loud. "To think that first year students like me could have such powerful Pokémon. We still have a lot of work to do before catching up to those guys, huh K9?"

Growlithe agreed. "Woof!"

As I watched the match unfold before me, a big and strong looking guy appeared behind me. He surely looked intimidating at first. He was giving out a fiery aura that made it seem as if he was ready to jump in the ring and take on the two trainers by himself. But when he started talking, anyone would know that he was a funny and warm-hearted guy.

"Apparently these two would be the top two trainers of all the first years at the academy," he said. "That's why they decided to battle it off and see who really was the strongest between them."

"The two best trainers, huh?" I replied. "That's amazing. If I want to the best Pokémon trainer in the world, I'll have to catch up to them first." I raised my voice. "Then when I beat them, I'll be the best trainer in this school!"

I paused for a moment. It felt as if everyone stopped cheering for a moment and just starred at me, annoyed. The guy I was just talking with took me by the arm and dragged me out of the crowd.

"Wooooww there buddy, slow down!" he whispered nervously. "You don't want to go out saying all that kind of stuff out loud just like that! Don't you know who these two are?"

"What? No… why?" I questioned, confused.

"I should have guessed…" he sighed. "The guy on the left with the Charmeleon. That's Xavier Rocheleau. His father is a Gym Leader and a powerful business man! Not only that, he also has a lot of influence in this school. He funds a whole bunch of research on Pokémon genetics in association with the academy. And that girl, she's Mendy Silva. You know, from the Silva family… Silva Corp., who own like all the Pokécenters! Her parents sponsored the school by giving them a whole bunch of items and helped them build the Pokémon Battle Domes. Anyways, you definitely don't want to becomes enemies with those two or your life is _for sure_ over."

"Meh," I replied, unimpressed. "I'm not scared of some rich kids. I came here to become a great trainer and no one is going to stop me from achieving my goal!"

"Damn, you surely have a strong character…" he said. He paused, then he held out his hand. "The name's Thomas. And this is my buddy Chespin."

As he said that, his Pokémon appeared from behind him. It stood straight and tried to look serious by saluting like a little soldier. "Ches-pin!"

I giggled. I shook his hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Noah and this is my Growlithe, K9."

Growlithe sat and wiggled his tail excitedly. "Woof woof!"

Thomas crouched down and patted Growlithe on the head. "Hey there little guy," he said. He got back up and looked at me. "Trust me on this one Noah, you're going to have to choose your friends wisely if you want to survive in this school. So how about it, want to partner up?"

I obviously couldn't refuse. He seemed like a nice fellow and I basically knew no one around here. "Sure!"

"I'm curious though," he said suspiciously. "Why are the both of you all covered in dirt?"

I had almost forgotten. "Ah. It's nothing, don't worry about it," I answered.

It seemed as though he accepted my response and didn't ask any other question. So, we came back closer to the arena, where the battle between the top two trainers was still going on.

~ End of Chapter 3 ~


	4. Chapter 4: First Battle Between Students

Chapter 4: First Battle Between Students

The two most talented trainers face each other in a glorious fight on this very first day of school, as they both demonstrate their impressive skills.

* * *

This Pokémon duel was no joke. Both trainers were giving it everything they had to come out victorious, and so were their Pokémon. They had been fighting for at least ten minutes since I got there, and it seemed as though both parties were unhurt and ready to keep fighting for another hour!

Out of curiosity, I pulled out my Pokédex to scan both Pokémon and see what it had to say about them.

'Charmeleon. The Flame Pokémon. It mercilessly destroys its foes using its sharp claws. When faced with a strong foe, the flame at the tip of its tail flares with a bluish white color.'

'Nature: Serious. Types: Fire. Current level: 17. Ability: Blaze.'

'It has high Attack and Special Attack, but lower Defense.'

"Wow!" I let out. "That's amazing. Who would have thought I could get so much information with this?"

Thomas looked at my brand-new gadget. "No way!" he exclaimed, looking really impressed. "Is that an old fashioned Pokédex? I didn't even know they still existed!"

"You bet," I replied proudly. "My mom got it for me. And to be honest, I didn't know they were still available on the market either."

"Damn, that's real nice," he said. "I've got the Pokédex app on my phone, but it only gives me useless information. You have to pay extra to get access to all the features. Plus, you need access to the Pokénet to even be able to use it. What about that Absol?"

"Let's see…"

'Absol. The Disaster Pokémon. It generally dislikes fighting, but it can use its blade to cut through anything if needed. It protects fields and warns people of imminent threats.'

'Nature: Timid. Types: Dark. Current level: 16. Ability: Super Luck.'

'It has high Speed and Attack, but lower Special Defense.'

Thomas started thinking. "Hmm. It seems Xavier's Charmeleon would have a slight advantage over Mendy's Absol because of its superior level. But Mendy's Pokémon is extremely quick, and with its Super Luck, it could end the fight in a single blow!"

"Damn, you sure know a lot," I said. "But look closely. Absol won't be able to rely on its Speed for much longer. Though it's trying to hide it, its movements are getting slower. Makes sense since the fight has been going on for a while. Mendy has to finish it off quickly or Xavier will come out on top, and I'm sure he's aware of that."

Thomas looked at me and looked very impressed. "Good eye," he said. "How'd you figure all that out?"

"I don't know, honestly. Now that I think about it, I've always been pretty good at guessing what Pokémon were feeling."

"That's pretty cool, is that like a gift or something?" he asked.

"Could be…"

Meanwhile, the fight was still going on and the crowd was still cheering. You could almost feel the intensity of the battle through the thick glass wall. I barely knew the trainers, but it was obvious that they were both taking this extremely seriously and that they wouldn't accept to lose.

"Quick, Absol. Use Pursuit!" Mendy ordered her Pokémon.

Absol crouched, then dashed towards its foe at full speed with the intent of finishing this battle. But Xavier wouldn't let it happen.

"Charmeleon, dodge the attack, then use Fire Fang," he commanded.

"Nice try!" Mendy shouted. "Absol, keep using Pursuit. Then use Slash!"

Absol's blade lit up and became as sharp as steel, but Charmeleon kept dodging its attacks with ease. Mendy was starting to get angry.

"C'mon!" she said. "Get it using your Double Team!"

Absol's tired body split into four different clones that each charged at the Charmeleon relentlessly. Xavier smiled.

"Charmeleon, use Smokescreen," he ordered confidently. And right away, the fire Pokémon filled the whole stage with a thick black smoke and used that to its advantage to hide. No one in the crowd was able to see what was going on anymore, but we all clearly knew what was about to happen.

The Absol's Double Team faded away, as it had reached its time limit. It stood immobile, unable to see or sense the enemy Pokémon's presence.

"Absol!" shouted Mendy. "Use your Razor Wind to clear off this smoke!"

And so, the Absol spun its blade and created a strong wind which instantly made the thick screen vanish. But little did it know that Charmeleon had been sneaking around, and as soon as the dark cloud cleared out, it appeared right behind of its enemy.

"Charmeleon, finish it," ordered for one last time Xavier. "Fire Punch."

The Pokémon's hand took on fire, and before Mendy's Absol could even turn around, Charmeleon hit it directly with its strong physical attack and knocked the other Pokémon out. The battle was over.

Xavier called back his Pokémon to its Pokéball. "Good work, Charmeleon." The Pokémon materialized into bright red light and was transported back inside of the mechanism.

The crowd went started going nuts. Some started cheering and yelling Xavier's name, while the young girl's fans started crying, unexpecting her defeat.

"Absol!" Mendy yelled. She jumped down from her platform and ran towards he fainted Pokémon that was lying on the ground. "Are you okay, Absol?" she murmured, with tears falling from her eyes.

"It endured a burn to the third degree," said Xavier, as he came down to join his opponent. "Some ribs were also probably broken because of the impact, but it should be fine. You should take it to the infirmary right away."

Mendy looked at him in anger, still crying. She washed away her tears. "Don't you think that I'm going to give up now," she said. "You might be number one for now, but you won't be so proud when I get my rematch. And don't tell me what to do!"

She called back her fainted Pokémon to its Pokéball, sprung up and took off _(Probably to the infirmary.)_.

"Wow, what a match!" declared Thomas. "That was really intense!"

While everyone around me was clapping, I was standing still. Unable to move. That battle was epic. And that trainer, Xavier, he certainly was something else.

"That guy," I said, as I unfroze from my amazement. "He didn't even go all out during the battle."

"Say what?" asked Thomas, surprised.

"Just look at him!" I pointed towards him. "He's still so calm and confident. He doesn't even look happy he won, as though it wasn't even a challenge to him! And his Pokémon. It knew moves it's not supposed to learn at his current level. And he finished the match completely unhurt and not tired in the slightest!"

I lowered my head and looked at my two hands. Some strange energy had just filled up my whole body and I could feel the adrenaline pumping inside my veins. I tightly closed my fists.

"That guy," I said. "He's the one I have to surpass."

I looked up and started walking through the crowd until I reached the PBD's entrance. Xavier was coming out. I stood in front of him.

"My name is Noah, and I'll be the one to surpass you! You just watch."

He looked at me, confused. "Erm… okay," he said. He looked at my clothes and took a step back when he smelled them, looking away. "I see. You're that kid from Rust Town. I heard about you. But don't go thinking you'll beat anyone in this school just because you think you can. And especially not with that little Growlithe you got here. What is it, level 12? At most. How about this. I'll give you your chance whenever I feel you're worthy enough to fight me, how's that? Until then, stay away from me. Your clothes stink." He held his nose and walked away, making his way through the students.

Dick. Now I wanted to beat him even more.

At that moment, the school's bell rang, signaling the beginning of classes.

Thomas joined me and grabbed my shoulder. "Classes will be starting soon, we should head inside or we'll be late."

My heart was still pumping. I was thrilled and excited.

"I swear, I'll become a great trainer. My Growlithe and I, we'll defeat that Xavier dude."

~ End of Chapter 4 ~


	5. Chapter 5: Class 23-A

Chapter 5: Class 23-A

Noah finally meets his classmates... And who happens to be in the same class as him?

* * *

After the fight outside, Thomas and I made our way inside the school. The inside of the building was just as pretty as the outside was. The ceilings were very high up, with ornaments and beautiful chandeliers hanging from up there. There were paintings on the walls and ceilings made by a professional artist that told the story of the universe, with every single mythological and legendary Pokémon depicted in all of their glories. It gave the school a medieval cathedral look, which was truly enchanting.

But when you looked down and around every single classroom, it seemed as though the school was from the future. Laboratories filled with students, scientists and other experts all dressed in white, working on various large-scale technological projects with the assistance of many Pokémon and autonomous machines. Some of them were working on Pokémon cell-replication, others on various advanced electronic items conception and some, as unbelievable as it could possibly sound, had were even working on giving birth to artificial Pokémon!

With so many brilliant minds and all the resources in the world available, I understood why the Pokémon Elite Academy was so recognized around the world.

As my new friend and I were walking through the corridors on our way to our first class, we couldn't help but stop by every door to see what was going on inside.

"Wow, everything around here looks so damn cool!" gushed Thomas.

"You know, all this just might convince me to change my whole future career plan," I said, jokingly.

"Actually, the reason why I chose this academy was to be able to conduct research on Pokémon and eventually own a laboratory of my own with a whole team under me!" said Thomas, enthusiastically. "I want to be able to say that I've made some revolutionary discovery about Pokémon. It's always been my dream to work with Pokémon for a living, they're such fascinating creatures!"

I really started to like this guy. He was sincere, had great ambitions and we both shared the same passion for Pokémon.

After finally making it out of the crazy maze that was the main hall, we arrived at our assigned classroom. And oddly enough, it just so happened that Thomas and I ended up in the same class: Class 23-A. What a coincidence! As we entered the room at the same time, we both stopped when we found what was waiting for us inside.

Large windows filling the wall right in front of us gave us a perfect view of the school yard in all of its glory. And despite the size of the classroom, only fewer than 25 students were assigned to our class. Among all the notable faces, there was one small nerdy boy with glasses alone in the corner of the class with its Magnemite. There were also three girls chatting. One of them had curly red hair and a Komala sleeping on her back. The other one was tall, curvy, very strong looking and had a Marill standing next to her. And the last one was short, with brown hair, purple eyes, very shy looking and had a Minccino sitting on her head, wrapping its tail lightly around her neck like a scarf (I have to admit, she was looking pretty cute…).

Besides them, a few guys at the front of the class were talking about girls, their biceps and how strong their Pokémon were. One of them had a Treecko and another one of them had a Luxio.

Finally, who would have guessed. Both Xavier and Mendy were sitting at a desk with a few rows between them (The school's #1 AND #2 trainers, both in MY class!).

Mendy had her arms crossed and was looking away from Xavier with an attitude. Though he didn't even seem to notice her, probably since he had a small group of fans surrounding him and begging him to become their friend.

Thomas decided to head towards the group of guys that were talking and joined their conversation. I decided to go see Mendy.

Surprisingly, it seemed as though all the other students were avoiding her.

I approached her. "Is your Absol all right?" I asked.

She kept her arms crossed and still had the same attitude as before. "What do you care?" she jabbed, bluntly.

"I saw your battle with Xavier," I responded. "It was a great match! You're a very strong trainer, and so is your Pokémon. But I think you expected to much of it. It was clearly running out of stamina during the battle, even though it acted otherwise not to disappoint you. I'm sure you care deeply for your Pokémon, but make sure you listen to them and don't push them over their limit."

"Don't come here to tell me what to do!" she scolded, cutting me off. "I know my Pokémon very well and I know what they are capable of. Plus, I don't need the tips of a nobody like you."

She paused for moment and looked down. "I left her at the infirmary," she whispered, as she had somehow regained her composure. "Nurse Joy said she should be alright, but that she wouldn't be able to battle for at least two weeks."

I looked at her with compassion. I was surprised she opened up to me. "I'm sure she'll be even stronger than before after she rests for a little while," I said.

"I hope so…" she said. She then swiftly crossed her arms again and regained the attitude she had before. "Hmph," she hissed, as she looked away.

So, I walked away and joined Thomas and the other boys. The guy with the Treecko was named Kai, and the one with the Luxio was Denzel. They both looked pretty strong, but they seemed to be pretty cool guys. We talked for a little while, until the classroom's door opened abruptly.

The whole class turned around and stood silent as a mysterious and threatening-looking figure entered the room. The person shut the door loudly and everyone immediately hurried to their desks, scared of the person standing in front of the big black board.

It was the teacher.

"Good morning, Class 23-A." he started. His voice was deep, but loud. Very manly. "I will be your teacher for this semester." He turned around and grabbed a chalk with his strong right hand. "My name is Professor Maple," he said as he wrote his name down on the board. He then turned around and faced the class, inspecting every single one of us.

He was a large man with a big stomach, a thick orange beard covering his entire face and juicy eyebrows that made him looking very serious. He was wearing an unbuttoned white lab coat with a red plaid shirt underneath. Surely, the first impression everyone had was that this man was super scary. I swear he could have killed us all just with his stare!

He walked up towards us and smiled. "Now let's get to know each other!" he said.

He proceeded to ask everybody's name, their Pokémon's name and what their hobbies were, and he took this extremely seriously. I was shocked. I had definitely misjudged him and he seemed like a very cool teacher (A chill dude, to be honest.).

When he finished the interrogation, he reclaimed his spot in front of the class and started explaining who this semester was going to work. "Okay," he started. "I'd like to first welcome you all to the Pokémon Elite Academy, the most prestigious school around the world! You should all count yourselves lucky." He then paused and went back to the serious expression he had at first. "Although there is currently 23 of you in this class of right now," he continued, "I highly doubt the 23 of you will be able to finish the semester."

I started getting nervous. What was he talking about?

"There's a reason why this school is so renown," he pursued, "and that is because we do no tolerate failure. All of you guys are going to have to work harder than you have ever worked in your life to become the very best, or you will be obligated to leave the school."

(Shit was getting real.)

"From today onwards, I will be teaching history, Pokémon biology, battle tactics as well as general sciences, in order to help you choose the path you want to pursue to continue your education in this school."

His speech left me wordless. I was anxious, of course, but also excited. I felt my heart pounding inside my chest. I was thrilled and couldn't wait to start this new challenge.

I was ready for it.

~ End of Chapter 5 ~


	6. Chapter 6: The First Assignment

Chapter 6: The First Assignment

Noah's teacher introduces himself and gives his class an assignment after the very first day of class!

* * *

And so, classes officially began. Our very first lecture was about the creation of the universe.

'An egg appeared in the middle of nothingness, and from it hatched an all mighty and powerful being _(Which humans eventually decided to name Arceus.)_ that decided to make something out of all the powers that were given to it. That being proceeded to give birth to legendary Pokémon and these very Pokémon were the ones who shaped the whole universe and the world we live in today.'

Mr. Maple was extremely knowledgeable. He was writing everything he was saying down on the big black board at a speed that was hard to follow. But surprisingly, his explanations made a lot of sense and were very easy to comprehend, which made him very enjoyable to listen to. I barely wrote anything down in my note book, but I was so captivated by his speech I could recite the whole history of the universe with my eyes closed.

After about two hours of lecture and a lunch break, we then jumped into the class I was the most excited about, which was battle tactics _(Of course, since I wanted to become the best Pokémon trainer in the world, duh.)_. I was impatient to learn about Pokémon duels, strategies for fighting in various situations, type match-ups and all that good stuff, and the first class did not disappoint me.

"Alright class," began the professor. "Our first lecture on the subject of battle tactics will be about… the perfect Pokémon team. Now, could anyone of you tell what Pokémon you would choose in order to build the perfect team?"

'Interesting question,' I thought. 'Does the perfect team even exist? I mean, if it does, a team full of legendary Pokémon would probably be it. Right?'

Chloe raised her hand enthusiastically. "Ouh, I know! I know!"

"Yes, Chloe," said the teacher, giving her the right to speak.

"The best Pokémon team would be six Victini!" she said, with slightly too much confidence. "It's a legendary Pokémon. And it _is_ known as the victory Pokémon… so how could you lose a fight with six of them?"

"Interesting choice," replied the professor, scratching his beard. "But what if I told you I could beat your team with a single, non-legendary Pokémon?"

He looked at the whole class with assurance, while doubt was written all over our faces.

"Victini," he continued. "Overall base stats of 100 in every category for a total of 600. And on top of that, it has the ability Victory Star, which greatly boosts its accuracy. As a legendary Pokémon, it can learn a wide variety of moves each more powerful than the other… so why wouldn't that make the best Pokémon team?" He paused to look at the class. "Someone tell me, what single Pokémon could beat a whole army of Victini?"

Xavier raised his hand. "I know," he said. "Sharpedo."

"Excellent Xavier," replied Mr. Maple. "Indeed, Victini happens to be a Fire and Psychic-type Pokémon, and whether it's a legendary or not, Fire will be beat by Water and Psychic will be beat by Dark, which are both Sharpedo's types. It's unavoidable. Now, you may all be thinking 'then there is obviously no perfect Pokémon team', and you would all be right to think that. Every single Pokémon has at least one type, which will make it strong against certain Pokémon and weaker against others. Of course, power level does play an important role in any battle, but you can't always assume that your Pokémon will be fine just because of its superior level. In real life situations, you will have to face all kinds of opponents. Sometimes their Pokémon will have a higher level than yours, and sometimes they won't. But you have to be prepared for anything. Sure, the perfect team doesn't exist, but I can assure you I could make myself one hell of a great team simply by having Pokémon that cover each other's weaknesses. For example, if my leading Pokémon was a Cyndaquil, which is a Fire-type Pokémon weak to Water, Rock and Ground, I would want to back it up with an Electric and a Water-type Pokémon. Once you have that, you also want each of those Pokémon to know a variety of moves of different types. If my Cyndaquil only knew Fire attacks, how could it possibly defend itself in any matchup? Remember this: balance is the key to success."

All of what he just said seemed very obvious to me. Having a team full of Pokémon of a single type would just be ridiculous _(Something only Gym Leaders would do…)_. Though it wasn't as simple as having a Pokémon for every single type, since the more Pokémon you own, the less amount of time you spend training all of them. So, in order to have a full roster of powerful allies, you need a limited amount of Pokémon that can complete each other very well.

"To test out whether or not you truly understand the meaning of a balanced team," said the teacher, "your very first assignment will be to capture wild Pokémon in order to make yourselves a team. In one month from today, we will be holding a little 3 vs. 3 tournament, where you will all be evaluated on the choice of your lineup, as well as how well you perform in this friendly competition. All the specific rules will be explained in due time, so for now, I wish you all good luck and a wonderful afternoon!"

This was so exciting! Finally, I would be able to experience a real battle and show that Xavier what I'm made of. The only problem was that my Growlithe was a bit too weak to battle Xavier's Charmeleon. Also, I had never captured a Pokémon before! How was I supposed to do that? Why wasn't the first class on how to catch Pokémon? Anyways… I knew that coming to this school would be challenging, and I was surely not going to give up that easily. K9 and I will have to work hard to get stronger. We'll catch some strong Pokémon and then we'll win this tournament for sure! Just watch us.

~ End of Chapter 6 ~


	7. Chapter 7: Noah's Training

Chapter 7: Noah's Training

Our protagonist begins his training to become stronger and seeks to complete his team.

* * *

After the announcement my teacher made about the tournament that would be held a month later, I realized that my partner and I weren't ready at all for this. In fact, I never actually battled another trainer or even a Pokémon with K9 before. For some reason, my Mom really disliked the idea of me getting involved in any battle. She would always say she was scared we would get hurt and didn't want to even hear about Pokémon Battles in our house. Honestly, I always thought it had something to do with my father, so I never objected her words. But I have to admit, I would always secretly watch professional tournaments on the TV in my room with K9 while she was at work, so we learned a bunch of tricks but never actually got to practice them. But now that my journey as a Pokémon trainer had really begun, we would finally be able to start our real training!

Every single day after school, Growlithe and I would run around the pond in Rust Town for hours, in order to work on our stamina. After that, I would do push-ups, sit-ups and squats while K9 would be working on his attacks. He already knew how to use Tackle, Growl and Bite, but the strength of his attacks was definitely lacking, so we started by working on that. We would go to the Forest of Slumbers and request the help of the wild Pokémon that lived there to practice battling with them. Every wild Pokémon of the forest would gather around us to watch the friendly battles take place. We mainly fought against Caterpie and Oddish, which were completely dominating us, but after a while we were able to keep up with them and eventually managed to beat them. So, we would jump to the next competitor that would always be slightly stronger than the previous one. I would always bring my Growlithe and his opponent to the Pokémon center afterwards to heal them up and then brought back the wild Pokémon to the forest _(I would also often bring Pokésnacks for all of the wild Pokémon. It was the least I could do to thank them!)_.

Eventually, his Tackle became quicker and more difficult to avoid, his Roar became louder and more intimidating and the jaw-strength of his Bite became more powerful. But of course, with what we saw on the first day of school, none of that was going to be enough if we wanted to defeat my rival Xavier. Besides, my Growlithe being a Fire Pokémon, it had to learn a Fire-type move at some point.

I placed a wooden dummy _(which was actually just a tree trunk on which I carved an angry face...)_ in the middle of an open area and I made him practice his move Ember. At first, smoke would barely even come out of his mouth, but we both never gave up and kept on practicing. We worked hard every single day, and after about three days, my Growlithe was now easily spitting fireballs like a machine gun. I took out my Pokédex to look at my Pokémon's statistics. K9 was now Level 15. Great progress, but we still had a lot of work to go through to catch up to the top two students.

Two weeks had now passed since the announcement, which meant we only had two more weeks to keep on practicing our moves. Though the problem was that I needed a total of three Pokémon on my line up for the tournament and I still hadn't caught any. So, we went back to the Forest of Slumbers, and as usual all the Pokémon enthusiastically gathered around us. "Would anyone of you guys be willing to join my team? I need more Pokémon in order to compete in a tournament!" I asked them.

At that moment, I didn't really know what had gone through my head. All of the Pokémon quickly turned around and fled to their nests. Of course, they wouldn't want to be captured and forced to compete against trainers they don't know in more battles where they would get hurt! _(Duh…)_ After that, they stopped coming out of their hiding spots to help us in our training, which was completely understandable. I probably scared them. 'That's not how you're going to catch Pokémon, you dummy!' I thought to myself.

Sadly, we resumed our training alone. Suddenly, at some point when we were running our _I-don't-know-how-many_ 'th lap around Rust Town's pond, a school of Wooper appeared from the water, showing only their head above the surface. And as if they were all mocking us, they sprayed us with their Water Gun, making us trip and fall to the ground. With my clothes and K9's fur now soaking wet, we both got up and turned around to face our enemies, but they had already disappeared back into the water. So, we just kept on running, with a pinch of salt on our hearts. But as if that prank wasn't enough, the group of little jokers thought it would be funny to come out and spray us every time we passed by their spot. I swear, if Growlithe wasn't as bad in wet environments I would have told him to jump in there and have them taste his wrath. I was that close to getting in there myself and giving them a piece of their own medicine.

Thankfully, they stopped after the fourth time, but to my surprise, when I realized that they stopped sprayed us, I turned around and saw a lone little Wooper who was following us around. Growlithe and I stopped and turned around to face it, thinking it would blast us with its annoying Water Gun once more. But it just stood there, looking at us with its little eyes and its big smile. We both lowered our guard, thinking at least one of them had to be nice. As we started approaching it, it shot Growlithe with a powerful jet of water that pushed him back. K9 frowned and charged head first towards the Water Pokémon, but the little Wooper didn't seem afraid at all. It bravely lowered its head, readying itself to take on the shock of the impact. When their heads collided, it made a hollow and echoing sound as if someone hit a gong, which could be heard from across the lake. They both stood still for a second, their heads still in contact, when an intense shiver passed through all of K9's body. Out of balance, he clumsily danced from side to side for a bit until he collapsed on the ground, stars flying around his head.

I looked at Wooper who had barely even moved. It lifted up his head, which seemed completely uninjured and burst out laughing, falling onto its back. I couldn't help it but laugh myself. My K9 got back up still looking at bit dizzy, then also started laughing with us.

I walked towards the little Fish Pokémon and crouched down. "You're a cool little buddy, Wooper." I said. "And you're very strong! I like you. Would you like to become our friend?" Wooper got back on its feet and looked at me with the same eyes and the same big smile as before. He then jumped and used a Headbutt on my forehead. I began seeing stars myself _(Holly Miltank, that forehead of his was as hard as a rock!)_. Then we all started laughing again. I took his answer as a yes.

When the sun started setting below the horizon, we all went back home together. That day, we made a new friend and I found myself a second Pokémon for the Tournament.

~ End of Chapter 7 ~


	8. Chapter 8: Fight Club

Chapter 8: Fight Club

Noah struggles to find a third Pokémon for his team. Nonetheless, he accepts his friends invitation to go see a professional Pokémon showdown!

* * *

Only a few days remained until the day of the tournament. K9 had grown up to Level 17 and was just starting to learn the move Flame Wheel, though his lack of acrobatic skills made the learning process a bit harder for him. That being said, I was still very proud of the progress he had made. Thanks to the countless laps around the pond _(which became a walk in the park after about 1000 of them… literally)_ his speed had gone up by a lot and his attack power raised by way more than what I expected.

And my little Joker _(which was the name I decided to give to my Wooper)_ quickly became part of the team. In fact, both K9 and I became very attached to him, and though he didn't speak a lot, he joined us in our training without hesitation. To be honest, it almost seemed like a joke to him, since he was able to easily keep up while still playing pranks on all of us. He had grown up to Level 18 and on top of his Water Gun and Headbutt, he learned both Iron Defense and Mud Shot _(Or perhaps did he already know those moves?)_. Overall, his defense and attack power truly surpassed my expectations.

We all worked extremely hard and our team would soon be ready for the competition, but we were still missing one Pokémon in order to complete the assignment and join the tournament. Of course, that last Pokémon was crucial and I couldn't just catch whatever would pop up in front of me. Our teacher told us that a great team is composed of strong Pokémon that complete and cover each other's weaknesses with their different types. I already had a Fire Pokémon with my K9 and my Joker was a Water and Ground-type, so these three types were mostly out of the question. I was thinking maybe a Grass-type or an Electric-type would be good to compensate for Growlithe's weaknesses, while its own weaknesses would be covered by Wooper. And on the other hand, Joker's only real weakness being Grass was already covered by K9. But frankly, I didn't want to restrict myself to those two types, so I made the decision to make my choice by following my gut.

After what happened in the Forest of Slumbers, I decided not to bother my Pokémon friends that lived up there anymore. I didn't want to ruin the bond we had and I figured I would find some stronger Pokémon elsewhere. So, in order to find my final teammate, I went to the all the way to the swamp near the abandoned power plant in the Industrial District, I went up the hill north of the academy and a whole bunch of other places, but none of my hunts for strong allies had been successful.

'What am I doing wrong?' I thought.

After wasting a few Pokéballs down in Cobalt Caverns, we were forced to evacuate after getting attacked by a swarm of Zubat and Crobat that were blasting us with their Supersonic attacks and charging at us with their Leech Life. We barely made it out _(I could hear the buzzing in my ears even hours after we left…)_. At that point, I was pretty much ready to give up. With my face covered in dirt, my whole body filled with bruises and both my Pokémon feeling very weak from their life getting drained, we walked home with our heads down feeling disappointed and ashamed.

"Damn it!" I complained out loud. "Why is it so hard to catch Pokémon?" My two friends were as clueless as I was. It couldn't possibly that tough, right? How did all the other trainers manage to catch their Pokémon, huh? Lost in my thoughts, I bumped into a stranger who was walking in the opposite direction from me. I fell to the ground.

"Watch it, kid," said the guy, annoyed. I recognized his voice. I looked up. It was Xavier.

"Oh, hey. Uh- yeah, sorry about that," I said awkwardly. "I didn't see you there."

"Hmph. You better be sorry," he replied bluntly. "Wait, I've seen you before. You're that poor kid from the academy! How's the training going? I see your Growlithe has grown… I guess. And- Oh! You made a new friend. How adorable, a Wooper. Great choice, really!" His sarcasm was irritating. He paused for a moment to search inside his pockets, from which he took out three Pokéballs. He threw them all upward at the same time, releasing the Pokémon that were trapped inside.

The first Pokémon that emerged was his old Charmeleon. Somehow, he seemed much bigger and much stronger than the last time I saw it back at the academy. The second one was a Leavanny, a Grass and Bug-type Pokémon. I had seen Pokémon of the same species before, but none of them could have been compared to Xavier's. She was tall, elegant and the leaves that covered her body looked as sharp as swords, ready to cleave through anything. The last one that came out was a Milotic, a Water-type Pokémon. She looked truly majestic with her long tail and bright red and blue highlights on her body, but at the same time looked fierce, dangerous. It was really impressive. How could he have caught and trained such powerful Pokémon in such a small time-lapse? They must have all at least been Level 20, maybe even higher. On top of that, his team was perfectly balanced as all of his Pokémon's weaknesses were mutually covered.

"Not bad, what do you think? I'll tell you what, they are all Level 25 or higher, and I've still got more time to train them before the tournament. THIS is how you train Pokémon, buddy. You didn't think your little team could rival with mine, did you? I'm hoping for you that at least one of them evolves before the match, and even then, you better pray not to face me. Anyways, gotta go."

He turned around and walked away, followed by his three beasts. 'What a dick,' I thought. But he was right, we had no chance of winning if we had to face him during the competition. Nonetheless, the fact that I had the chance to attend a school with such powerful trainers to compete with made me pumped. I bounced back up on my feet.

"Don't underestimate us!" I screamed. Xavier and his Pokémon just kept walking without even looking back. 'This guy…'

Later that day, after walking all the back home, I got a video call from someone on my Pokédex. To be honest, I thought these things would have been too old to even be able to do that _(Truly an amazing device! Thanks Mom 3)_. A strange thing though, since I didn't give my number to anyone.

"Hello?" I said, wondering who could possibly be calling me during the weekend.

"Hey!" said the person enthusiastically. "Is this Noah?"

"Uh- Yeah." I replied. I recognized the voice. "Thomas?"

"Mah man!" he said. "I can't believe I actually found your number! But anyways… I'm calling you cause I was wondering if you were free tonight. I know the tournament's coming up soon, that we all need to train and practice, but I found something super cool! Plus, you could almost say it will count as training."

He successfully peaked my curiosity. "I mean, yeah!" I said. "I was planning on getting some more leveling up done, but if you're saying to will count as training… what did you have in mind?"

"Eyyyyyyy! I knew you'd be interested! Meet me at 10:30 in front of the noodle shop in the Red-Light District. I'll tell you everything when we meet. See you later."

He hung up. I wasn't so sure I wanted to go anymore. The Red-Light District was a shady commercial area about 15 minutes away by walk from Rust Town. At night, all kinds of gangsters and criminals would hang out around the place. It was the "hot spot" for criminal activity, with many bars, strip clubs, drug dealers and even weapon shops. I heard about it from my Mom, who has to pass by to go to work. "Don't go near that place!" she would tell me. "You don't even want to know about all the stuff that is going on over there." I had a pretty bad feeling about this, just thinking about everything that could go wrong if we got involved with something. But for some reason, I convinced myself it would be fun. Hanging out with my friend and training at the same time. What could go wrong?

My Mom always worked till very late at night on weekends, so I knew she wouldn't be back home for a while. If she had been there, there was no way she would have let me go out so late, but I was old enough to take decisions for myself. Even though they didn't like it, I kindly asked my Pokémon to get into their Pokéballs for now, since I didn't want to get into any trouble over while still being ready to cat if something were to happen.

K9 looked scared. I actually never made him rest in a Pokéball before. "It will be okay," I told him, trying to reassure him by petting him on the back, although maybe it wasn't the Pokéball that was scaring him. To be honest, I wasn't even sure what was going to happen. Nonetheless, he agreed to cooperate, so I pressed on the middle button of the device. It opened, creating a bright red light that suck him right into the ball, which then closed and turned orange. I did the same for Wooper, whose ball turned light blue. I grabbed a bit of money from my Pika-Bank, put on my jacket and headed for the meeting location.

It was surprisingly pretty cold that night, with almost no stars in the sky. I made my way over to the Red-Light District with my hands in my pockets and mouth covered by my coat. I arrived a few minutes later, slightly earlier than the time he told me, but Thomas was already there, waiting for me inside the noodle shop with a bowl of soup in front of him. He turned around, noodles dripping out of his mouth, and happily waved at me, telling me to join him. I entered the little shop and sat down next to him.

"Hey Noah!" he mumbled, attempting to speak with his mouth full.

"Hey Thomas," I replied. "So, why did you want to meet up so late? What did you have in mind?"

Thomas finished his bite, then took his bowl with both his hands and chugged what was left of his soup. When he finished, we put the bowl back on the table and pushed it away from him. He wiped his mouth with his arm, burped, got up and took some money from his pocket and left it on the table. He started walking away, so I got up and started following him. And then, he stopped and looked at me with two tickets in his hands.

"You know what those are?" he said excitedly. "These are tickets for a professional Pokémon duel between two of the regions strongest fighters. And it's happening right here, right now!"

My eyes became as big as Pokéballs. I couldn't believe it. "NO WAY," I said. "I always wanted to see Pokémon trainers battle in real life! I mean, I've watched SO many matches on the TV you wouldn't believe. I've seen all of Long Hi region's champion Dash Junior's matches, like, ever. His Mega Manectric cleared the whole competition! He defeated all of the Gym Leaders and didn't lose a single match! And I also know everything about -"

"I know!" said Thomas, interrupting me in the middle of my monologue. "A random guy was selling them for a very good price down in the city. I just couldn't resist! And as I said, we could learn a bunch of useful tricks by watching professionals from up close." He grabbed my arm and started running. "C'mon! Let's not waste any time. We don't want to be late!"

I was so glad I decided to come. All I could think about was meeting my favorite trainers and asking them for tips after having watched their performances in front of thousands of people in a huge stadium. I had almost forgotten where we were, until… "Here we are!"

I sort of came back down to reality when we got to the stadium, which didn't look like a stadium at all actually. "The Fight Club," said Thomas. "Sounds pretty violent… I like it." I was starting to have second thoughts.

"Erm, Thomas?" I asked. "Did you come here before?"

"Well, no," he replied. "It's my first time, but I've been told it was super cool!"

"You do realise where we are, right?" I said. "This district. It's pretty… you know, sketchy."

"Meh, don't worry about it," he answered carelessly. "I'm sure it will be awesome! Here, let's go in."

I hesitantly followed him to the entrance, where was standing a very large and tall bearded man, who was wearing all black clothes and who had tattoos on his arms. Beside him was standing his Pokémon, a Machoke, who was imitating his pose. Arms crossed, leaning on the wall behind them. They were the place's bodyguards.

"Tickets." said the guard bluntly, without moving even slightly.

"Sure," said Thomas who handed them to him.

The big man looked at the tickets, then looked at us.

"How old are you guys?" he asked. "You sure you wanna come in here?"

Of course, Thomas was pretty tall and muscular for his age, which made him look much older than he was. But for me and my baby face on top of my short body, there was no way I could pass for more than 15 years old.

"We came here to see Pokémon duels," said Thomas.

The man kept looking at us, then after a few seconds ripped the top of our tickets off and let us in. "Enjoy the show. And watch yourselves in there."

What was that supposed to mean? What were we getting ourselves into? I was starting to feel a little nervous about all this. But either way, we went in.

~ End of Chapter 8 ~


	9. Chapter 9: Underground Bloodsport

Chapter 9: Underground Bloodsport

The show ends up being not exactly what the two friends had planned... what did they get themselves into?

* * *

After having passed through the front door, we stood in the middle of a long hallway that led to a staircase going down. It was a poorly lit corridor, with only a few lights hanging from the ceiling, which were flashing on and off. The walls were dirty, covered with graffities and stains _(I could have sworn that some of them were blood stains, but I decided to pretend they were just old and washed off red paint splashes)_. Thomas and I both felt uncomfortable, somewhat freaked out. There was clearly something fishy about this place, but it was too late to go back, now that the door had been closed behind us.

So, we started walking slowly and cautiously towards the stairs.

In an attempt to forget about what mess we got into, Thomas initiated a conversation.

"So…" he stuttered. "How's the training going? Did you catch any new Pokémon?"

This was so awkward. "Yeah," I answered. "I uh- I caught a Wooper while I was training with Growlithe. We worked on lots of things and we all made some decent progress. But I- I erm… I'm still missing one Pokémon to have a valid team for the competition. I wasn't able to catch a third one."

"A Wooper, that's cool!" he said, trying to make me feel good despite the situation in which we were. "But don't worry about it, you still have the whole day tomorrow to catch another one. If you want, I could help you out, show you some good spots."

"Sure," I said. "If we make it out of here. Ha-ha." _(God dammit why did I agree to this…)_ "Anyways, how about you? How's your Chespin doing? And did you catch any other Pokémon?"

"Oh, actually," he started. "My Chespin evolved into Quilladin! He's Level 22 now."

"Wow, that's impressive!" I gushed.

"Yeah," he continued. "And on top of that, I caught a Level 20 Monferno and a Level 21 Kirlia."

"Hmm… an interesting choice," I said. "Two Fighting-types and one Fairy and Psychic-type. A pretty cool contrast in character, since I thought you were more of the- you know, tough and physical kind of guy. It's surprising to see you caught a very _feminine_ and special attack-oriented Pokémon like Kirlia."

"Oh, don't worry about it," he replied. "My Kirlia is actually a boy, and I was planning on making him evolve into Gallade using a Dawn Stone. So, I've been trying to teach him some more physical attacks."

"Ah, that's more like you." I said, jokingly.

We finally reached the staircase. It was so dark that we couldn't even see the end of it.

"Okay…" I stuttered, fearful. "Now if THAT doesn't look unsafe, I'll be damned. I can't even see where this thing ends! We are for sure going to get stabbed or mugged while going down there. We might as well jump in a black hole, we'd have a better chance of surviving!"

"C'mon," said Thomas. "Don't exaggerate. Look, you can see some light over there, so that means it's not too far down. And remember, if anything happens, we always have our Pokémon to back us up. So let's just go! Trust me, it'll be worth it."

"God dammit," I conceded. "Alright."

We both looked at each other, then looked at the abyss that was in front of us. We took a deep breath, then began our descent one step at a time. The more we'd go down, the darker it would get and the more it felt like we were being sucked into the shadow realm. But like an angel coming down from the sky, a light shined upon us, revealing a concealed path that would lead us to our destination: the Pokémon Stadium.

Although the place was giving out a dirty and run-down vibe at first, the stadium was the complete opposite of that. It was huge. In fact, there were probably thousands of people in the stands. Who would have thought that such a small building _(from the outside, at least)_ was hiding such a big stage? Now, it surely wasn't as impressive as the ones you would see on TV for the International Championships, nor the top of the line and super technological Pokémon Battle Domes we had at school. But still, it was quite a sight to be seen.

There must have been at least 50 rows of seats filled with people surrounding the oval-shaped battlefield, which was bounded by a 10 meters tall metallic fence. The field itself was quite large as well, with many boulders and a hard cement floor separated in two equal zones by a thick line in the middle.

My amazement soon turned into inquietude though, as I took a closer look at the field. Chains seemed by be hanging from the high ceiling, holding heavy rocks and sharp objects pointed downward. The floor was filled spikes, similar to sea urchins but much bigger, and on top of that, traps and holes seemed to be laying around everywhere. It all became clear now.

"Thomas," I said, alarmed. "This is no regular Pokémon Duel show. Do you see all those traps and chains? They're all over the place!"

Thomas looked as though he had also just realised what all of this was. "Holy shit," he said, terrified. "This can't be right. What- What the fuck!"

A loud electric sound suddenly rang throughout the stadium, then someone started speaking on the microphone. His voice made the whole stadium tremble.

"LADIES AAAAAAAAND GENTLEMEN! Welcome, to tonight's BLOODBATH!"

The whole crowd stood up, screaming on top of their lungs like wild Exploud, throwing beer and food all over the place. Everybody went absolutely nuts. They were all jumping around and pushing each other around… some were fighting. I was scared. _We_ were scared. I just wanted to hide in a corner, away from all of this mess.

The announcer resumed his speech.

"So, I hope all of you have placed your bets and are ready to make some money, cuz TONIGHT, ladies and gentlemen… TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!"

The crowd cheered once again. What was all this about?

"You fuckers are all very lucky, because for tonight's show the defending champion will be fighting against enemies like you've never seen before. We were able to get our hands on some of the BIGGEST, STRONGEST and most DANGEROUS Pokémon of the whole Long Hi region! Will our champion be able to defend his title? Or is he gonna finish as ground meat? Well… YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT! LET'S WELCOME TO THE STAGE, THE DEFENDING CHAMPION! THE ONE WHO WAS GIVEN THE NAME OF KING! THE ONE, THE ONLY! HERACROOOOOOOOOSS!"

The floor opened and a platform began rising from underground, on which was standing a quite large Heracross. I thought the crowd was crazy before, but when the "King" showed up, the whole stadium turned into a whole other kind of mess. A general outbreak surged throughout the different sections, Pokémon began flying everywhere, spitting fire in all directions and people started falling from the balconies down to the lower sections. I had never seen anything so chaotic before… I had never been more scared in my life.

"We have to leave, now!" said Thomas. "We are going to get killed if we stay here!"

I agreed with him, we weren't going to survive among these demented Primeape. We had to leave. But it made me sick to the stomach. To think that human beings would force Pokémon to battle each other in such conditions. I wanted to puke.

Thomas grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me toward the exit. In the middle of all this commotion and confusion, I looked at the stage. And when I did, what I saw made me realise something. I pulled my arm out of Thomas' grasp and stopped.

"What the hell are you doing, Noah?" asked Thomas. "We need to get out of here. Now!"

I extended my arm and pointed toward the stage. "Look!" I said.

The Heracross had his hands on the metal fence and was shaking it, as though he was trying to break it. He was prisoner of this awful sport. A caged Pokémon, forcefully thrown into this. He wanted to get out of there. Although his large and strong body made him look tough, his face was crying for help. He was scared.

"These Pokémon," I said. "They don't want to be here. They don't want to fight! We need to help them."

"Fuck, Noah!" said Thomas, anxiously. "There's nothing we can do for them. This is beyond us! Our own safety is at risk here."

I turned to face my comrade and approached him until I was right in front of him. "I'm getting this Pokémon out of here," I said, confidently. "Whether you help or not."

I was animated, angry. Who knew that people would do such terrible things to Pokémon? I couldn't just pretend I didn't see anything. I had to do something.

I dug into my pockets to take out the two Pokéballs I brought along. "Growlithe! Wooper! Come out!" I shouted. Red light flashed as the Pokéballs opened, releasing my two acolytes from their little room. "C'mon you guys, a Pokémon needs our help! Let's go get him."

Both Pokémon looked at me and nodded in agreement, and so the three of us jumped to the level under us and started heading towards the main stage where was imprisoned the Heracross.

"Wait!" screamed Thomas. He paused for an instant, then sighed, knowing he couldn't stop me from interfering. "God dammit."

He reached into his bag. "Go, Quilladin!" he said, releasing his Pokémon. "We gotta help him out."

And so, he started running and eventually caught up to us with his Pokémon at his side. "How are we gonna do this?" he asked. "There's no way we can get over that fence, it's way too high!"

"Don't worry," I said confidently. "K9's got this."

We were going down the stairs as fast as we could, until the announcer got back on the mic.

"And now, his first opponent. Weighing 420 kg! An absolute UNIT of a Pokémon. Please, make some noise! And welcome to the stage… THE TANK! AAAAAAAAGGRON!"

Once again, the floor of the stage opened and a platform started rising. The Pokémon that was standing on it was absolutely huge. Arms as big as tree trunks, teeth as sharp as katanas and eyes red like a demon. It looked enraged. The crowd started booing aggressively, as they wanted the defending champion to keep his title.

"Get 'im good!" they would scream. "Break 'im into pieces like the other ones!"

But all this taunting only contributed to anger the beast even more.

We were getting pushed around by the drunk spectators who wouldn't want to let us through, but we finally made it to the same level as the battlefield. At that moment, the announcer shouted.

"All right… ARE YOU READY TO RUUUMMMMMMBLE? Let this battle TO THE DEATH, BEGIN!"

"Oh no! The duel is starting!" said Thomas. The angry Aggron immediately rushed towards his opponent, who clearly didn't want to fight, and started throwing Rock Blasts at him.

As we stood in front of the giant fence, I looked at my Growlithe.

"K9!" I shouted. "Now's the time to put all of our training to good use. We practiced a lot and you've made a lot of progress, so I know you can do it!"

Growlithe was pumped. He roared, letting smoke come out of his nostrils. I faced the stage and pointed at the fence.

"C'mon, Growlithe!" I commanded. "Use Flame Wheel!"

As soon as I said so, Growlithe crouched into a ball and started spinning in place. His body then caught on fire, creating a blazing wheel that was ready to blast off.

"GO!" I screamed as hard as I could.

The fire Pokémon shot forward as fast as a bullet and collided with the metal fence, which bounced him back off.

"Don't give up!" I screamed once again. Determined, he jumped at the fence a second time. But this time, he didn't get repelled away. As he kept spinning and spinning, he continued pushing forward. At the same time, the Heracross kept running away and dodging the rapid projectiles that were being thrown at him. K9 pushed as hard as he could.

"GROWLIIIIIIITHE!" I yelled.

And then, as if something clicked inside of him, the fireball exploded, releasing an even stronger and brighter flame. The fence was now white hot, as the wires started to melt down, and with a final thrust, the bars finally snapped and broke into pieces, creating a path for us to get onto the stage.

"Holy fuck," gasped Thomas. "He did it."

I had never seen K9 do something so incredible, he surpassed himself and all expectations.

"YES!" I screamed, as my Pokémon stopped spinning. He landed on the grounded, but instantly fell, as he never used his new move for such a long time before.

"You did well," I told him, as I called him back into his Pokéball. "Get some rest."

We were now able to get on the stage and all we had left to do was to stop this horrible show. The whole stadium became confused. "What the hell is going on?" shouted the announcer on the speakers. "Get these goons out of here!"

The crowd shouted in discontentment and started throwing things onto the stage. The Heracross looked at us and understood that we came here to help, but the Aggron on the other hand only became angrier. He looked at us, then started running in our direction.

"Quilladin!" called Thomas. "Quick, use your Vine Whip to restrain his movements!" The Grass Pokémon stepped forward and threw his vines in the direction of the Steel-Rock Pokémon and wrapped them around it, immobilizing it.

"Wooper!" I called, on my turn. "Water Gun!" The Water Pokémon jumped from behind me into the air and sprayed the foe with a powerful stream of water, which seemed to be enough to knock it out and buy us some time.

The announcer's anger could be heard through the mic as he grunted. "Grrr… Guards!" he screamed. "Get in there already and get rid of them. NOW!"

As soon as he ordered it, a dozen of guards each equipped with protective armor and electric batons surrounded the battlefield, preventing us from escaping.

"Oh no!" said Thomas. "We're trapped!"

Heracross was looking panicked. He didn't know what to do, where to go. He was looking around, trying to figure out how to get out of here, but there was no way. He was sweating. Terrified, he got into a little ball, but then… something snapped in his mind.

He got up. The expression on his face had completely changed. His eyes were now empty. It seemed as though green flames started coming out of his body, like a powerful aura surrounding him. Out of nowhere, his body started swelling up, almost as if he was evolving. His arms started growing like balloons. A long and thick horn started rising from his forehead. It appeared as though Heracross' anger and fear made him morph into a completely different Pokémon. He Mega Evolved.

When his transformation finished, he started walking towards a guard, slowly. But then he vanished, and teleported just in front of him knocking him high into the air with a powerful Close Combat attack. The guard passed out before he even hit the ground. Then he disappeared once again and like blood lusting monster, he jumped in front of all the other guards, beating them to a pulp one after the other with his Megahorn. In an instant, they all collapsed to the ground, unable to get back up. The "King" was now standing in the middle of the stage. His rampage was over. As his anger went down, he turned back into his normal form and his confidence left his body, as he went back to the scared and vulnerable Pokémon he was previously. I was left speechless, and so was the whole stadium.

I ran towards him and took him by the arm. He was unable to move.

"You were amazing!" I told him. "But we need to get out of here now, before we get into more trouble. Are you with us?"

The Pokémon looked at me in distress. He couldn't bare all of this any longer. He had to escape this hell. He nodded.

"Alright," I said. "Let's go then."

We started running as fast as we could and exited the battlefield by the same hole we got in from. The voice of the announcer was heard once more. "Don't let them escape!"

It became chaos. I'm guessing the spectators weren't happy with the fact that we ruined their show. Every single one of them who had Pokémon released them and started charging at us.

"At this rate, we won't make it out of here!" shouted Thomas.

"We need to push them away and free the path to the exit," I said, looking for a solution. "Ah! Wooper, use your Mud Shot to push away the spectators and their Pokémon!"

My little Joker leaped in front of the group and released from his mouth a huge wave of mud that washed away everyone to the sides.

"Yes!" I shouted. "The path is clear, now's our chance!"

In a final sprint, we made it to the gate. We made our way up the stairs, all the way through the long and sketchy corridor and blasted the door open, knocking out the doorman and his Machoke. And then we ran, we ran as far as we could, until we finally made it out of the Red-Light District and nobody was following us anymore.

We were safe now.

~ End of Chapter 9 ~


	10. Chapter 10: Police Report

Chapter 10: Police Report

After seeing everything that happened back at the Fight Club, the two boys decide to take their new friend to the hospital and get some rest before reporting the incident to the police.

* * *

We ran for miles, until we were certain nobody was following us anymore. We had just crossed the border of the district and arrived in Rust Town. We could finally stop to take a breather. It must have been close to morning at this point.

"Okay…" said Thomas, still panting. "Was it just me or did you guys also see this?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Are you talking about the fact that there is a whole illegal operation running an underground fight club where Pokémon are used as slaves and get killed for entertainment? Or are you perhaps referring to the fact that this Heracross right here Mega Evolved without any Mega Stone and beat the living crap out of all these guards? Cause in both cases, yes. I saw that."

"That was so messed up," said Thomas. He approached the Heracross who had his hands on his knees and was staring at the ground. He was clearly still in a state of panic. "How did you do that buddy? That was insane!" he said, as he reached to put his hand on the Pokémon's back. But the Pokémon reacted nervously, pushing him away and stepping away in self-defence.

"Hey!" screamed Thomas. "Watch it!"

"Wow there," I said calmly. "It's okay, Heracross. We're not here to hurt you. We just want to help! Remember, we just escaped from that place with you."

I put both my hands in front of me to show that I didn't mean any harm, and approached him carefully.

"You even saved us from all those guards!" I continued. "You can relax, now. We are your friends. All of us here. Everything we'll be alright and you won't get hurt anymore. I promise."

I extended my hand closer to his head and continued slowly moving forward. He was trembling. He probably didn't really understand everything that was going on. He must have been in shock after everything he went through.

"Shhhh. It's okay. I won't hurt you. Trust me."

I gently touched the back of his head. He twitched at first, but eventually calmed down. I petted his back.

"It's okay now," I told him, trying to be as reassuring as I could. "Why don't you get some rest now? Would you like to get inside this Pokéball?"

He closed his eyes and sat, surrendering himself to me. I clicked on the button of my Pokéball and Heracross materialised into red light that was sucked into the device, which then turned dark green.

"We need to get him to the hospital," I said to Thomas as I got up. "He had to deal with a lot of stress and probably has some injuries which we don't know about."

Thomas agreed, knowing it was the right thing to do.

Rust Town was a small village, not big enough to have a hospital of its own. So, we had to go all the way to Azurite Town in order to get some help for our new friend. When we got there, the nurse understood the situation and took him to the Pokémon Intensive Care without losing a second, just in case, to perform all their tests and to make sure he was all right. They told us it would be better for him if he stayed at least for a day, so they recommended to come back by tomorrow afternoon to check up on him.

"Understood," I said. Then we left.

We decided it would be best to head back home and get some rest for the rest of the night. So, we headed towards Thomas' house who lived nearby. On the way, we passed by the group of thugs that bullied that kid on the first day of school. They were hiding in a corner of the park, probably smoking _I don't know what_ and getting as high as a Koffing. I don't think they noticed me though, and it was better that way _(we dealt with enough shit for the night)_.

After having walked in silence for a while, Thomas was the first to speak.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to… you know-"

"Don't worry about it," I said. "We couldn't have known."

"But man, that was some messed up shit," he continued. "For real! We should probably report that to the police."

"You're right," I said. "I just really don't know what else we could do about it, seeing how many people are involved in all of this."

"Yeah!" he said. "And I mean think about it, who knows what else could be happening right now under our noses? This is probably just the tip of the iceberg!"

"For sure," I said. "But for now, I really need to go back home. My mother is probably worried sick... And I'm completely exhausted."

"Let's meet tomorrow, then," he proposed. "First thing in the morning. I'll meet you at your house and we can go to the local police station together."

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

We walked through a few more blocks until we reached Thomas' house.

"That's my stop," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay then. Good night," I replied.

After that, my house was only a few minutes away. As I entered by the front door, I tried to remain as quiet as possible, and then I noticed that the TV was on. I went into the living room and saw my mother, sleeping on the couch with a half-finished bowl of chips on the table in front of her. She must have seen that I went out and waited for me to come back, but couldn't stay awake. It was understandable, since she probably worked until very late. She must have been exhausted.

I went to her room and grabbed her blanket, which I brought to the living room. I gently put it over her, making sure to cover her whole body while trying not to wake her up. I kissed her on the forehead. "Sorry for being late, mom," I whispered. "I love you."

I went up to my room, where I released my two Pokémon from their Pokéball. They were already half asleep. "You two did great tonight," I told them. "I'm proud of you."

I grabbed them in both my arms. I laid them at the end of my bed and let them sleep there, like they always would. I got undressed and put on my pajamas, then buried myself under my sheets.

But to be completely honest, I couldn't sleep that night. So many thoughts were going through my mind.

'What the hell was that about tonight? For such a big thing to be possible, there must be some sort of organisation behind all of this. Was there more to this?'

And then I started thinking of all the possible atrocities that could be going on in this world without us even knowing about it.

'Beside forcing these poor Pokémon to battle, they could be selling them, enslaving them to do hard labor or maybe even worst… eating them? I mean, I heard stories about people hunting Pokémon for their meat… But a law was passed long ago to make consuming living beings illegal. So, that couldn't be an option… right?'

It was driving me nuts. I was worried.

I hoped Heracross was going to be okay.

The next morning was pretty rough. I was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at our door. Who was that? What time was it?

I looked at my clock. It was 7:30 am. I probably had at most three hours of sleep.

I heard my mother yell from the kitchen. "Comiiiiing!"

I got up and headed downstairs, rubbing my sleepy eyes. It was Thomas. He was all dressed up, his bag on his back and his Quilladin just beside him, ready to go.

"Good morning," he said. "I'm sorry to bother at such early hours. Are you Noah's mother?"

"That would be me!" she said, enthusiastically. "Are you one of his friends from the academy?"

"Yes," he answered.

"That's so sweet!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know Noah already made new friends! Why don't you come in? I'll go get Noah. He must still be sleeping."

She turned around and when she saw me in the stairs, she looked surprised. My hair was probably all over the place and I must have had the face of an old man with bags under my eyes.

"Ah!" she gasped. "You're awake. Go fix yourself up. Don't make your friend wait. I'll cook you guys some breakfast."

"Sup," I mumbled. I went back up to take a shower.

"Thank you for your hospitality missus," politely said Thomas.

"It's nothing," she replied. "And no need to be formal. You can call me Eve."

"Well thank you then, Eve," he said.

"So, you guys went out last night?" she interrogated the guest.

"Ah… erm, yes!" he replied nervously. "We- erm… we went out to… practice! Yes, to practice for tomorrow's tournament at the academy."

"Oh! I see," she said, eager to hear the details. "That's good, that's good! Noah has been training day and night for weeks for this competition. You guys must have worked hard since you came back so late!"

"Yeah. Ha ha!" uncomfortably laughed Thomas. He clearly felt bad about telling lies like that to someone he had just met a few moments ago.

I got out of the shower, put my clothes on, packed my stuff, woke up my Pokémon and put on my hat, then went downstairs to join the newly made friends. Ditto had joined Thomas at the table with a knife and a fork in each hand, impatiently awaiting his food.

"Noah!" said my Mom. "I didn't know you already made a friend! Why didn't you tell me earlier? He's very sweet."

"I erm… the subject never came into a conversation." I answered. "But anyways, we should probably get going. We have to important stuff to take care of."

"What are you boys going to do so early in the morning?" she questioned.

"Well," I started. "We need to get some more training for the tournament at school. You know..."

"Well why do you stay a bit longer and get some breakfast first?" she asked. "You must be hungry and you'll need some energy!"

"Yeah… I'll pass on the burned toasts." I said. "Thank you though, Mom. I really appreciate it. I'll be back later!" I grabbed my friend by the arm and dragged him off of his chair. "C'mon, let's go before she asks any more questions," I whispered.

"Okay, bye then!" she said as we watched us leave the house. "It was nice meeting you, Thomas!"

"Oof," I said in relief. "Close call. Did she ask anything about last night?"

"Yeah," replied Thomas. "But I didn't mention all the trouble we got into. Did you talk to her about it?"

"Not yet," I said. "I don't even know if I should. I wouldn't want her to get all worried about me. But anyways, why did you come so early?"

"To be honest," he started. "I couldn't sleep at all last night. And I figured we didn't have any time to lose, you know."

"So you too, huh?"

The police station was about 15 minutes away from my house. On our way there, we had to pass by some district where I rarely go. For some reason, I always had a weird feeling about that place. I didn't know if it was about the houses or the air, but it just didn't feel safe. And somehow, I had this strange feeling while we were walking. First, I heard some noise from the roof of a house, and then I thought I saw something move behind the bushes, and it didn't sound like a Pokémon. It almost felt as if someone was there… watching us. I looked up at Thomas, but he didn't seem to have noticed anything. He was walking fast and looking straight ahead, as usual. Despite that strange feeling, I decided to overlook it and forget about it. Was I being paranoid? I don't know… It must have been the wind or my brain playing tricks on me.

We finally made it to the police station. Rust Town's Police Department. Once we went in, we were greeted by a female officer. She had short green hair under her police cap and she was wearing a blue uniform which was identified by her police badge and her name. Officer Jenny.

"Good morning young men," she said with a bright and warm smile on her face. "How may I help you?"

"Hello officer," I started. "We would like to report a crime."

"Alright," she said. "Just fill in these papers right here and submit your report when you are done."

"Wait, hold on," insisted Thomas. "I don't think you understand, we saw something. And it's really important! We would like to talk to you. Personally."

"I understand," she answered calmly. "Let's go in my office, then." We followed her to a little windowless room with a single desk and a few chairs. We sat down. "So, what is it?" she asked.

"You see," I resumed. "We were in the Red-Light District yesterday evening. It was very late. We had bought tickets to go see a Pokémon Battle event, but when we got there, it wasn't that at all. These people weren't even real trainers. They just had a whole bunch of Pokémon, who they obviously mistreated and beat repeatedly, and they had them forcefully fight against one another under extremely dangerous conditions, and that, until one of them would die! We believe that there is a whole underground criminal organisation who arranges those cruel and illegal battles, and all of that is happening right under our nose!"

"Also, if I may," added Thomas. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only thing that was going on in there. I mean… All of these people acted so crazy. They were right at each other's throats. Some even had weapons! There must have been drugs and all sorts of shady things in that place, and we need to do something about all this."

The officer turned her chair around and looked at the ceiling, scratching her chin. "Hmm, that's very interesting," she said. "Did you boys participate in any of the business that supposedly happened at that place?"

"What?" I jabbed. "What do you mean? Of course not, that's why we are reporting it!"

"Okay," she continued. "Do you have any proof of what has been going on? Or that it wasn't the first time it happened?"

"Proof?" asked Thomas. "We rescued a poor Heracross who had been enslaved for _I don't know how long_ in there. He's in Azurite's hospital right now getting treated in Intensive Care. Isn't that enough? Just go there with some of your men and you'll see for yourself that what we are saying is the truth! This isn't just any small unimportant case. We are suspecting there is a whole criminal organisation behind all of this."

"I understand your concern," said the officer. "But we can't base ourselves solely on your testimonies to build a case on this. And top of that, the Red-Light District is out of our jurisdiction. You're going to have to follow up with the higher authority if you want to do something about it."

"This has to be some sort of sick joke, right?" I rebuked angrily.

"Listen," she said. "How old are you guys? Fourteen? Fifteen at most? You kids sure are brave to come all the way to the police to report this. But unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to help. If you'll excuse me."

She got up from her chair, opened the door and showed us the way to the exit. I was at a loss for words.

"What the fuck?" snapped Thomas in frustration once we got outside.

"I have no idea what just happened," I said. "It was as if she wouldn't even listen to what we had to say. It all seems suspicious."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Something must be going on and it just might be bigger than what we thought."

" _Do the kids know about anything?_ " asked a voice.

"I don't think so, but they have seen a lot." answered officer Jenny.

" _They're still young boys, they shouldn't be much of a problem._ " said another, more feminine voice.

" _Still, we should keep an eye on them… Just in case they end up putting their noses in places where they shouldn't,_ " said the first voice.

" _You did well, Jenny. Keep us updated if they come back or if you see anything,_ " said the second voice.

"I will."

~ End of Chapter 10 ~


	11. Chapter 11: Abnormal Powers

Chapter 11: Abnormal Powers

Weird things are starting to happen around Noah... How is his new friend doing?

* * *

After a disappointing visit to the police station, we decided to check on Heracross to see how he was doing. As we entered the facility, we went to the front desk and spoke to the nurse, who brought us where Heracross was resting. It was a huge room within the hospital that was completely covered in grass and filled with trees, where recovering Pokémon could run around freely while being rehabilitated before going back to the real world.

As I peeked into the room from the other side of the big glass wall, I saw all those Pokémon playing with each other. There was a Ponyta, who had one of her legs amputated, a Krabby who had one of its claws missing and also a little Tyrogue who had a third degree burn on his back and bandages all over his arms. But despite what happened to them, they all seemed lively, as they were playing a game of tag.

"They all look so happy," said Thomas.

"You know, I think the reason for that might be that they are just glad to be alive," started the nurse. "Some of them were hurt during battles, others got involved in terrible accidents… and some of them even almost died. But somehow, they were saved. And I think they are just thankful for that, so now they just try to enjoy every second of their lives while they still can."

"Where is Heracross?" I asked the nurse. "How is he doing?"

The nurse paused for a second. She started flipping through the pages of her notebook. "We thoroughly examined your Pokémon," she said, looking at her notes. "We scanned his whole body and internal organs in order to detect any injuries, infections and such, since he seemed to be in a really bad shape when you brought him in here."

"And?" questioned Thomas.

"Well," she resumed. "Besides a few scars and scratches here and there, there didn't seem to be any major physical problem with your Heracross. That being said, he was suffering from an intense loss of energy, as if he exerted himself to the limit of his capacities, creating a tremendous amount of stress on his body. So, we made sure to give him all the nutrients he needed and let him rest for the night. And when we came by his room this morning, everything seemed to be back to normal."

"Well, that's good news! Isn't it?" exclaimed Thomas.

"Not exactly…" answered the nurse. "It was actually quite abnormal. When he woke up this morning, it was as if nothing happened. The scratches on his body were gone. Completely healed. And usually, after a Pokémon suffers from that much stress, it can take days of rest before it gets any better, and even weeks to fully recover. But he was completely fine after just one night."

"Actually, we didn't mention this when we first came yesterday night, but there is something strange about this Heracross." I said. "We found him in a very... _bad_ place. He was being forced to fight other Pokémon, and so we came to help him out. At first, he looked so scared and defenseless. But then all of a sudden, something happened. The situation became very dangerous. We were being cornered, and then out of nowhere, he just… evolved. I mean, he Mega evolved. But you see, the thing is I'm not really his trainer and I'm not even sure he has one, you see? And on top of all that, I didn't see any Mega stone being used on him. It just sort of… happened."

"Interesting," she said. She looked surprised and immediately started writing things down in her notebook.

"Have you witnessed anything like this before, Doctor?" asked Thomas.

"No, actually," replied the nurse, still writing. She looked up at us and fixed her glasses that were starting to fall down her nose. "But I have heard of similar stories before, so that would explain a lot of things. Perhaps you came across a very… _special_ Pokémon."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"By that, I mean that this Heracross might be gifted with a special ability," continued the nurse. "My guess would be that whenever he is faced with a very dangerous situation, where his life, or perhaps someone else's life might be in serious danger, the overwhelming and tremendous amount of fear that goes through his body stimulates- or rather triggers a sudden adaptation in his body. It could be his way of responding to danger… a defense mechanism that allows him to Mega evolve whenever he is faced with such a threat. But it also seems as though this said _transformation_ has a very detrimental impact on his body, as it consumes a lot of energy. I believe that this could open up the door to a whole other universe in Pokémon research and scientific advancements. If only we were able to perform more tests with your Hera-"

"Actually, I'd rather not," I interrupted. "In fact, if he's all better now, as you said, then I would like to take him and leave. Now, could you tell me where he is?"

"Hmm… I understand," she said. "Your Pokémon is in there with the other ones. But there is one more thing I must tell you. Ever since he arrived in this hospital, he's been responding extremely nervously and aggressively to any sort of human or Pokémon contact. He wouldn't even let the nurses get close to him! So, we had to tranquilize him in order to give him his medication he needed. I believe your Heracross is suffering from something called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which makes him extremely nervous around humans and even other Pokémon. I don't know what happened to him that caused such a thing, but I truly believe that it would be beneficial for him if he stayed here a little longer."

"I said we're leaving," I jabbed. I turned around and walked towards the glass door. I pressed the button on the wall just besides it, which caused it to slide sideways, releasing a sound of depressurization. I stepped into the indoor garden.

"Heracross!" I screamed. "Where are you? It's me. Remember? I came to pick you up. We're getting out of here."

I saw a shadow moving from behind a tree all the way at the other end of the closed room. It started slowly revealing itself while holding the trunk of the tree with its big arms, only showing half of its face. It was him.

"Ah, there you are!" I said in relief. "C'mon now, we're going home. You have nothing to fear anymore."

The Pokémon was hesitant at first, but eventually came out and nervously walked towards me with short rapid steps. We headed for the door, which slid open once more.

"With all due respect, I don't think you quite understand the situation, young man," warned the nurse. "Your Pokémon's abilities may be a great danger for society and I'm pretty certain it still cannot control it fully. I would strongly advise that you let him stay here a little long-"

"Thank you for what you have done for Heracross, Doctor." I said, cutting her off once again. I took out my Pokéball and recalled him back inside of it. I put the ball back into my pocket and looked up at the nurse. "But it's time for us to leave," I continued. "We'll take it from here. Heracross isn't scared of me. I saved him, so he knows he can trust me. And I don't care that he has a special power and that he can't control it yet. I'll protect him even if it costs me my life. I'll teach him to control his fear and to control this amazing power of his, but I will certainly not let him go through all the things that happened to him before. Good bye now."

I burst out of the hospital without looking back. Thomas followed me outside without saying a word. We walked for a while until we reached a park nearby the hospital, where we sat down for a minute.

"What are we gonna do, now?" asked Thomas.

"I don't know man…" I said. "For some reason everything felt weird today. First the police officer acted fishy, and now the same thing happened with the nurse who wanted to do all kinds of test on him! I mean, maybe she didn't have any insidious intentions... and she did tend to his injuries, but I still feel like Heracross will be safer with me."

After this morning's unpleasant turn of events, we decided to blow off some steam. We let all our Pokémon out of their Pokéballs and we all played together in the park. We hopped on the swings, went down the slide and ran around the playing module. Even Heracross, who was still very shy and uneasy decided to join us in a game of hide-and-seek. He was finally starting we feel part of the group.

~ End of Chapter 11 ~


	12. Chapter 12: The Big Day

Chapter 12: The Big Day

The day of the tournament has arrived! Everybody is anxious to begin their battles... except for Noah.

* * *

The weekend was now over. School was starting in less than an hour, and today was the big day. The day of the competition had finally come. I should have been excited about this. My Pokémon and I worked really hard to learn new moves and we were now stronger than ever. My Growlithe was Level 18 and my Wooper Level 19. All this was great, but all I could feel was stress… fear.

I now had three Pokémon on my team, which was the minimum requirement to qualify for the tournament, but after everything that happened in the last few days there was no way in a million years I was going to force Heracross to fight. Not after everything I saw.

But on the other hand if I didn't participate in the event, I was for sure going to fail the assignment. My reputation would be ruined.

 _Look at this kid. He goes to the most prestigious Pokémon academy, where they form the greatest trainers in the world… and he doesn't want to fight! What a loser. If you don't want to fight then go to another BS school._

'That's what they would think of me,' I thought.

I was conflicted. Deep down I knew I was in the right place, that I loved everything about this school and that it was always my dream to become a great trainer one day. But then again, wouldn't doing such a thing to my Pokémon, who already suffered so much, make me a bad trainer and a bad person?

I thought about it throughout the walk to the academy. Once I got there, I saw everybody from class 23-A outside on the campus with all of their Pokémon by their side.

Denzel's Luxio's fur grew longer and he became much bigger. He seemed to have caught a Scyther and a Grotle, both looking very strong.

Kai's Treecko evolved into Grovyle and he now had on his team an Electabuzz and a Graveler. A fierce looking line up.

There was also William, standing alone near the school's entrance. His Magnemite evolved into Magneton, he caught a Sableye as well as a Shuckle. All Pokémon who seemed to match his shy personality. An odd coincidence, but surely a team not to be underestimated.

Among the girls who were talking together, Robin stood out of the crowd with her energetic personality. Her Marill had grown much stronger, and she now had a Miltank and a Makuhita.

I also saw Chloe, who didn't seem to have any other Pokémon out, except for her Komala who was still sleeping on her back.

Everyone was there except for Xavier and Mendy, whom I couldn't see at all in the school yard. I already knew which Pokémon Xavier had, since I saw them when he bumped into me _(that dick)_ , but I was really curious to see what Pokémon Mendy managed to catch. They were most certainly going to be as strong and as majestic as her Absol, and knowing her, she must have trained them really hard.

Thomas was already there with the other guys. He noticed me from afar and waved at me, telling me to come and join them, so I did. As marched towards them, someone jumped in front of me from out of nowhere. Frightened, I jumped back and let out a little scream.

"Hey Noah!"

It was Amy, the girl from my class with the Minccino. It seemed as though her Pokémon, who was sitting on her head, had now evolved into a Cinccino. With its new fluffy white tail, it looked even cuter than it was before, as it wrapped around Amy's head like a soft little cloud. For some reason, it felt as though we hadn't seen each other in such a long time. I was being so focused on my training and catching Pokémon that I almost forgot about her! But mostly, I forgot how stunning and beautiful she was. _(Amy used Attract… IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE! Noah is now immobilized by love!)_. I just stood there. I felt my face becoming increasingly red, as I couldn't find anything to say.

"Oh, urgh… Hey!" I mumbled clumsily.

"How did the assignment go?" she asked. "Are you ready for the tournament?"

I didn't really know what to say. "Urgh, yeah! Yeah for sure!" I replied nervously. "My K9 and I are gonna crush this thing, right buddy?"

"Cool!" she said. "I can't wait to see you in action. I hope you're ready, cause my team is definitely one to fear. Anyways, I'll go meet with the other girls. We'll catch up later!"

She turned around and jogged away as she waved at me. I waved back at her. "Okay then, see you later!" I said, but she was already too far to even hear me. I looked down at my Growlithe who gave me a headbutt to the leg and then looked at me in disappointment.

"I know… I messed up," I said to him.

At the same moment, Thomas appeared next to me.

"Yo, Noah!" he said. "Wassup? You made it."

"Yeah, here I am." I answered.

"So… what are you going to do?" he asked. "Are you going to participate?"

"I really don't know, man." I said, discouraged. "I'm still debating. I don't want to do this to Heracross, but on the other hand I really don't want fail this assignment. Plus, we've worked so hard to get where we are… and I kind of told Amy I'd be participating."

"Hmm… so I guess you don't have a choice then," he said jokingly. "Listen, Noah," he started, seriously. "We both know about what he's been through and I would probably be thinking the same as you if I were in your boots. But if you look at it that way, he made a lot of progress since we first rescued him. He trusts you now and he's not as scared of people or other Pokémon as he was before! If worst comes to worst, just pull him out of the fight, that's it. At least you won't fail the assignment for it."

I looked up at Thomas, who looked back at me with nothing but confidence in his eyes. He really believed in me, as well as in Heracross… and so did I.

"You're right," I said.

I pulled out my two other Pokéballs and summoned my resting Pokémon.

"Gather around, you three!" I ordered my Pokémon, who immediately placed themselves in a line in front of me. "Today is a big day, and we've come a long way. You might be new to the family, Heracross, but all of us here have waited for this moment for a very long time. I certainly don't want to back down now, but before I make any decision, I want to know something."

I looked at him straight in the eyes and he looked back at me with all of his attention.

"I will not force you to participate in anything that you don't want to, okay?" I told him. "If you don't feel comfortable in any of this, I want you to tell me. And also, I want you to trust me. I'm your friend. We're all your friends here! And none of us would want you to get hurt. So tell me… do you trust me?"

I felt him hesitant at first. He thought about it for a second, but then he looked at me and raised his closed fist in front of him. He then shouted "Cross!" in approval.

"Great!" I yelled in joy. "Let's go do this then!"

And so Thomas and I entered the school to sign our Pokémon up for the competition that was about to begin.

~ End of Chapter 12 ~


	13. Chapter 13: The Rules

Chapter 13: The Rules

Now that Noah has decided to join the fight, let the tournament begin! Who will he duel first?

* * *

" _Attention to all students! The Pokémon tournament for class 23-A will begin shortly. Please join your teacher in the school's back yard in front of the Pokémon Battle Dome #1. Further details about the competition will be announced once everyone arrives. Thank you."_

While all the students from other classes headed to their lecture, all of us from class 23-A met outside and waited for Professor Maple to arrive. It was finally time. As we stood next to each other in a line, we were all starting to feel nervous... I could feel it. But it was a good kind of nervousness. We all worked so hard to get where we were and it was finally time to show our progress to everyone else. Thomas, who was standing right next to me, was starting to get fired up. He was standing straight up like a robot with his chest out and breathing heavily with a big smile on his face. William, who stood on the other side of me, was trembling and sweating like a Tepig, but he had a look of determination on his face. And me? With my Growlithe, my Whooper and now my Heracross by my side, whom I now knew for a fact I could all trust, I was more confident than ever. Only two things still had me anxious: Mendy and Xavier. Most of the class arrived at the meeting point, but there were still no signs of them anywhere. The class' number 1 and 2 trainers being late to the first Pokémon tournament... it surely seemed odd.

It was established that these two trainers were the strongest in the class, as they both demonstrated the extent of their abilities since the very first day of class. But in fact, no official ranking of our class had been made, since this was going to be the first time we would participate in an official tournament. Who knew? Maybe they weren't going to be as good as everyone thought, and maybe someone unexpected could climb up to the number 1 spot.

"Hey Thomas," I whispered to my partner. "Is there someone in the class you don't want to battle?"

"No," he responded immediately. "But I sure know who I absolutely want to battle."

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Denzel," he answered. "I'm pretty confident that he is the guy to beat in our class. He's a pretty low-key guy, so he doesn't get as much attention as Xavier or Mendy, but I'm ready to bet that he's going to win this tournament."

"Oh really?" I said, surprised. "I didn't think much of him at first, but that you mention it, he looks really confident and his Pokémon all look super strong and well behaved. He could be underdog of our class."

"I worked very hard with my team, but I didn't get to fight with another trainer yet. And so, I feel like the only way there is to truly test out my abilities and see how far I've really come is to fight him, cause I know it's not gonna be easy. I don't know if I can beat him, but I want to give it everything I've got and make him sweat a bit."

I looked at him. The spark that was already in his eye before grew even brighter. He was determined.

"How about you?" he asked. "Anyone you wanna fight?"

Xavier. It's the only person that would come to my mind, no one else. I wanted to show him that I wasn't just some loser and that I also was a great trainer. But then again, I was really hoping not to face him in the early stages of the tournament, because I knew there was no way I'd make it to the second round.

"I don't know," I told him. "Haven't really thought about it."

At that moment, Mendy finally walked through the doors of the academy and reached the meeting point. She had her same nonchalant, indifferent and pompous attitude as usual as she walked up to us without even looking at any of her classmates. She joined us in line, then crossed her arms and hmphed, looking away. It seemed as though she was still trying to keep a facade and act cool and all-mighty in front of everyone.

Seconds later, it was Xavier's turn to walk through the doors. Everyone turned around and his fans among the class started cheering and applauding him _(as if he needed all that attention)_. And as if his entrance wasn't flamboyant enough, instead of joining us in line (like a normal person), he came in front of all of us and started displaying his arrogance, as usual.

"Guess I didn't miss anything," he said. "Where's the teacher anyways? Wasn't he supposed to meet us here? I want to get this over with and get my grade."

A voice was heard from afar.

"Here I am, here I am!" said the voice. We looked up to the sky and saw Professor Maple with his messy hair and a suitcase in his hand. He was getting carried by a Honchkrow while hanging onto its legs in his other hand. He landed smoothly, thanked the Pokémon and let it fly away. "Please excuse my belated arrival. I got caught up in my work last night and missed my alarm this morning! Ha!"

He walked up in front of us and dropped his suitcase on the floor.

"Gather 'round, folks!" he said, gesturing us to come closer.

He pressed a button on his suitcase and the thing started moving, revealing mechanical parts that were hidden inside. The handbag slowly started unfolding until it finally transformed into a big white board, with an incomplete tournament bracket and a few instructions for the event.

"Alright," he started. "First things first, I would like to congratulate you all for coming this far. I see that everyone in the class, except for one student who unfortunately had to leave us, has signed up for the tournament. With that, you have all completed the first part of the assignment… which means that all of you pass!"

Everyone started cheering in relief. At first, I thought that we would need to do get to a certain point in the tournament in order to pass, but to learn that's all we needed to do to pass was a big weight off of our shoulders.

"Now," he continued. "Before we can go on and begin the battles, I still have to explain how the rest of your grade will be decided. As of now, all of you guys have acquired 50% of your grade, and the other 50% of it will be decided as such…"

He clicked on a small button on the top right corner of the board, which made the image of bracket disappear to reveal a diagram of all the elements, with their strengths and weaknesses.

"As you were told when this assignment was first announced," he resumed, "your task wasn't solely to build a team. One of the requirements was to catch Pokémon of different types, so that your lineup would have the fewest weaknesses as possible, assuring a coverage of as many types as possible. Depending on how well you managed to balance your team, up to another 20% can be awarded."

I had to admit that I got pretty lucky for that. I didn't really choose to catch neither my Wooper or Heracross, but fortunately it just so happens that my lineup had a decent type diversity.

"Finally," he pursued, "the last 30% that can be acquired will depend of your performance in this tournament. The higher your ranking and the better the display of you and you're Pokémon's abilities, the better the grade. And that sums it up! Now, before I reveal the bracket, I would like to add that after this tournament is over, the rankings for the best trainers in the class will be made official. BUT! The rankings will not only depend on the position where you finish. I will also take into consideration your total grade for this assignment when making the tier list, so that means that whoever finishes 1st in this competition may not be the #1 trainer in the class."

He paused for a second to catch his breath.

"Alright, I've made you wait long enough."

He pushed once more on the button of his board and the image changed again. The bracket for the tournament had finally been revealed!

The surprise was encouraging for some who finally got the name of their first opponent, which that had been waited for so long to get, but it was devastating for some others, who learned that their fate in this tournament would be sealed in the very first round.

The list went as follows, in this order.

In Group 1:

Xavier vs. Diego

Kai vs. Charles

Mendy vs. Giordano

Robin vs. Alex

Ben vs. Rosa

Emma vs. Livia

And in Group 2:

Thomas vs. Nicolas

Denzel vs. Jaden

William vs. Claire

Chloe vs. Amy

Noah vs. Vince

Jenn vs. Connor

Mendy and Xavier were both placed in Group 1, which meant that they would have to fight each other before the finals. None of them seemed to be fazed or affected in any way by this unveiling, though. As usual, Mendy didn't seem to care about anything and Xavier remained as confident as ever.

"Good, now let's get this over with, shall we?" he said, with a hint of cockiness and sarcasm.

Group 1 for sure had some other strong names, like Robin and Ben who were both not to be underestimated. And on the other hand, the people in Group 2 were also very powerful trainers, which made my chances to get too far very slim. I didn't really know Vince all that well. I had seen him hang out with the other guys in the class before, but I wasn't even sure of what kind of Pokémon he had! That's going to be interesting.

Thomas was facing another one of the boys, who also seemed like a great trainer. I wanted to hear his opinion on the match-ups, but when I turned to look to my left, he wasn't there anymore. I looked around and found him walking towards Denzel. He came up to him and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Denzel," he said. "After we both win our first match, we'll be battling against each other."

Hearing the speech of his rival, Denzel turned around to face Thomas.

"I don't intend to lose," he said.

"You better not," answered Thomas, "or I'd be really disappointed. I'll be looking forward to our duel."

"I'll see you in the second round," said Denzel.

Thomas walked back towards me, with a look of determination in his eyes.

"So?" I asked him.

"I'll finally be able to battle him," he said. "That's all I care about."

He turned his head to look at Denzel once again. I felt him nervous, but happier than ever and ready to fight with everything he had.

"There you have it!" shouted the Professor. "Please note that the names have been picked randomly in order to make it fair for everybody. And now that you know who you will be facing, I will move on with the explanations for how the tournament will go down."

Everyone gathered back in front of the professor and listened with all of their attention.

"The battles will be separated in 5 different rounds," he began. "Rounds 1 and 2 will be Single-Elimination rounds, which means that every competitor must select a single Pokémon before the battle and that Pokémon will be the only one to fight for that round. Your opponent will not know what Pokémon you chose before the battle begins. And of course, if you make it to round 2, you must select a different Pokémon from the first round. All the battles for rounds 1 and 2 will be held simultaneously, and everyone of them will be monitored and marked by a referee. That's all you need to know for now! I will explain the rules for the other rounds in due time."

Professor Maple activated his suitcase's mechanism once more, which transformed it into a large table this time around, with a bucket and a bunch of papers sitting on it.

"Now everyone, make a straight line. One by one you will have to come to the table and mark down the name of the Pokémon you choose for the first round. When that is down, you will be given the number of the Battle Dome where your first battle will be held. Good luck to you all!"

~ End of Chapter 13 ~


	14. Chapter 14: Noah vs Vince

Chapter 14: Noah vs. Vince

Noah faces his first real opponent in a Pokémon duel! Who will come out victorious?

If you're enjoying this story as much as I enjoy writting it, make sure to share it and give me your feedback:)

* * *

'Wait what?'

That's what I thought after Professor Maple announced the rules of the first two rounds for the tournament, and I was sure everybody else thought the same as me. There were so many things wrong with that format!

First off, why would the battles be single elimination? The assignment was to gather a team of three Pokémon in order to compete, but if we can only use one of them per battle, how can we show the true strength of all our Pokémon?

Secondly, there was the fact that we had to choose what Pokémon to use before the fight and without knowing the opponent's Pokémon. That meant that the outcome of the battle could be decided solely by luck! For example, if a trainer happened to choose his Water Pokémon while the other chose a Fire-type, that person would start off with a massive disadvantage which wasn't under his control.

As I waited in line to enter my starting Pokémon, I starting getting nervous. What Pokémon was I going to choose? Since I only got Heracross a few days ago and didn't get much time to practice fighting with him, I thought it was safer to leave him out of the fight for the first rounds. K9 had grown very strong over the last weeks. He learned new powerful moves and I knew I could trust his agility in battle. Though on the other side, Joker was probably a better pick for this first fight. He was at a higher level than K9, he only had one true weakness and was a really tough little guy.

"Next in line, please!"

My turn was approaching. What to do? What if Vince's Pokémon was a Grass-type? Wooper would probably take a beating. And what if the battle was going to be held in an aquatic PBD? Growlithe wouldn't be able to use the stage to his advantage.

"Next, please!"

It was my turn. I stood up straight and walked like a robot to the table where the Professor was sitting, waiting for me with a paper and a pen in his hands.

"Ah! Good morning, Noah." he said kindly. "Are you ready to battle?"

"Yes, sir." I answered nervously.

"Great!" he said. "Then if I'm not mistaking, the three Pokémon you signed up for the tournament are Growlithe, Wooper and Heracross. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Which one of them would you like to choose for your first duel then?"

I stood in silence for a few seconds, as I still hadn't made up my mind.

"I know it's a hard choice," said the Professor. "But if I were you, I wouldn't think about it that much. I'm fully conscious of the situation I'm putting you in, but keep in mind that everybody else is on the same boat. So just go with your feeling, Noah."

He handed me the pen and placed the paper in front of me. At that point, I finally understood. What Pokémon I would choose was completely irrelevant. The first rounds were meant to test our ability to adapt to situations where the opponent is unknown. Maybe you'll be at a type disadvantage or maybe you'll be lucky and find a foe who's weak against your Pokémon, but the test was about improvising and finding a way out even when starting with an arm tied behind your back.

I grabbed the pen and wrote down my choice.

"Excellent!" said the teacher, who then proceeded to fold the paper and placed it in an envelope, which he gave to one of his assistants standing next to him.

"Your fight against Vince will be held in the Pokémon Battle Dome #21," he continued. "Miss Amelia will guide you to the correct location. May the force be with you and your Pokémon!"

"There we are, Noah. The battle will begin shortly. You may prepare yourself and wait for your opponent. I'll be the judge for this match."

"Okay then," I said to the lady with glasses. She wrote down a few things on her notepad and exited the dome, probably to go get my opponent, since I was the first one here.

The arena had a very particular layout. The ground was covered with grass and was completely flat, except for one HUGE tree in the very center of the stage. Its trunk went all the way to the top of the dome and its branches covered the whole ceiling. Some of those branches had bridges connecting them and others and platforms handing down from them like swings tied to a rope. Overall, the lower part of the stage was very simple and had very few obstacles, like a normal battle field, but the higher part in the trees was the most interesting. It would for sure favor the Pokémon with the greatest agility, as you would need a lot of skills to navigate through all those branches with ease.

I was starting to come up with a strategy to use the different platforms to my advantage when the arena's door opened. I turned around. It was Vince, who finally arrived with the Professor's assistant. She told him everything she had already explained to me, then headed to the side of the field and got up on a metallic platform. She pressed on a button and the thing began to rise above the ground until it stopped at about have the total height of the arena. This would allow her to have a greater view of all the field to better monitor the battle.

Vince was a pretty tall and large guy, but despite his imposing size and superior muscle mass, he was very cool and soft. He almost reminded me of an Ursaring. He was wearing a purple sleeveless jacket over his school uniform and a pair of jeans on his legs. He started walking in my direction, and when he came up to me, he put his hand in front of him.

"Hey Noah!" he told me. "Let's give it everything we've got, alright? I hope you're ready!"

I smiled and shook his hand.

"Let's do this!"

He turned around and headed to his half of the field. We both stepped on our respective platform, which simultaneously rose slightly above ground level. A voice then starting ringing through the dome's speakers.

' _Alright, gentlemen. This is your first battle of the tournament. Before we begin, let me remind you that during this match, you may only use the Pokémon you selected earlier. If a Pokémon knocks out or if I decide to stop the battle for any reason, the winner will proceed the second round, while the other person will be eliminated and will not move forward. Now, on my signal the battle will begin. Get your Pokéball ready in 3… 2… 1… START!'_

As soon as she said the word, a big timer appeared behind her, counting down from 20 minutes. I was the first to send in my Pokémon to battle.

"Growlithe, go!"

Right after, Vince sent out his own Pokémon.

"Nidorino, get in there!"

Instinctively, I pulled out my Pokédex to gather as much information as I could on the enemy Pokémon.

'Nidorino, the Poison Pin Pokémon. Nidorino has a horn that is harder than a diamond. If it senses a hostile presence, all the barbs on its back bristle up at once, and it challenges the foe with all its might.'

'Nature: Brave. Types: Poison. Current level: 18. Ability: Poison Point.'

'It has high Attack, but lower Speed.'

This wasn't too bad. Vince's Pokémon was at the same level as my K9, and since it hadn't evolved into Nidoking yet, it didn't know any Ground-type moves, which meant it had no type advantage on me. Although, Growlithe was going to have to be very careful and avoid his physical attacks as much as possible, since his ability allowed him to poison his target upon contact, and that would most likely mean the end of us. But fortunately, my Pokémon's speed was better than Vince's, and I would be able to use that against him.

Right off the bat, Vince launched his first attack.

"Nidorino!" he yelled. "Head straight to him and use your Poison Sting!"

The Poison Pokémon lowered his head and aimed his horn straight towards Growlithe, which grew longer and turned a brighter pink. Without hesitating for even a second, he charged at his foe from the other side of the stage.

"K9!" I shouted. "Make sure to dodge his attacks! A single hit by that poisonous needle could mean the end for us. Use your speed to your advantage!"

Nidorino was now closing in on Growlithe, but the Fire Pokémon bounced off and leaped over his attacker who ran right into the wall.

"Good job!" I screamed.

"Get back up, Nido!" ordered Vince. "Fury Attack!"

The Pokémon forced himself out of the hole he had made in the wall and charged at K9 once more.

"Keep moving buddy! He won't be able to touch you."

Vince's Pokémon kept coming at him with consecutive attacks, but none of them managed to connect. After a while, Nidorino was starting to get tired and combo attack slowed down.

"Now's your chance, K9! Quick Attack!"

As Growlithe landed on his back paws, he immediately bounced back and dashed head first for his opponent who was too slow to dodge. Nidorino was knocked back, but still landed on his feet. We clearly had the upper hand in this fight.

"I see how it is," said Vince. "I guess we're going to have to change strategy then. Nido! Use Dig!"

"What?!" I gasped.

The Poison Pokémon jumped into the air, aimed his head to the ground and started spinning as he fell back down. He disappeared in an instant.

"How is that possible?" I said. "Nidorino isn't supposed to know that move… he's not even a Ground-type yet!"

"Although my Nido hasn't evolved yet," started Vince, "I already started teaching him Ground moves! Now, how are you going to dodge his attacks if you can't see him!"

We were in big trouble. Vince already demonstrated the physical power of his Pokémon with his other attack, and now we had no way of evading it! Come on… think.

"K9! Use Odor Sleuth to locate Nidorino's scent!"

Growlithe followed my command and started sniffing out the ground to try to find the opponent.

"C'mon, come onnnnnnn!" I said impatiently.

"Nido, NOW!" shouted Vince.

Suddenly, the earth started trembling under Growlithe's paws.

"Oh no. Quick, get out of there!" I screamed… but it was too late. Nidorino rose from the ground like an erupting volcano right under K9 and hit him with his sharp horn right in the stomach. Growlithe flew upwards and fell on his back a bit further from where the Pokémon emerged. He got back up painfully, but it was clear that he took a lot of damage from the hit. He was standing on 3 legs and was bleeding from under his fur. Another one like that and the match was over.

"Alright, Nido. This match is ours!" shouted Vince. "Use Dig one more time!"

As soon as the order was heard, the Pokémon dove once again to the ground and disappeared. The clock was ticking. Come on, Noah, think! Odor Sleuth didn't work previously and Growlithe had no way of navigating or even landing an attack underground. There had to be a way to get out of this mess. I looked around.

"Yes!" It struck me. "Growlithe! Climb up on that tree and get on those branches!"

My Pokémon looked behind him and headed for the tree as fast as he could.

"Nido, get him!" ordered Vince.

The ground started trembling once again. The underground torpedo was now getting closer and closer to Growlithe, who had almost made it to the tree.

"Jump!" I screamed. K9 jumped as high as he could and as far as he could. And at the same moment, Nidorino appeared from the earth right behind him, following his prey like a heat seeking missile.

Time appeared to slow down, as the two Pokémon stood mid-air. Nidorino was undoubtedly going to collide with K9 if I didn't do anything.

"K9, Flame Wheel!" I commanded.

My Pokémon started spinning increasingly fast until his whole body caught on fire. The thrust of the flame gave him an extra boost which allowed him evade Nidorino's attack and reach the tree trunk faster. K9 grabbed on the bark and quickly climbed up to safety, while the opposing Pokémon continued his trajectory until he collided head first with the tree, making it tremble.

"Good work, Growlithe!" We now gained back our advantage.

"I see, you're using the terrain to your advantage," said Vince. "Nido's Dig attack won't be able to reach you if you're too high up in the air… good thinking. But that won't stop us! Nido, get back up and follow Growlithe!"

At that point, both Pokémon had taken quite a bit of damage. But nonetheless, Nidorino got back up started climbing up the tree.

"Growlithe, use Ember on Nidorino to keep your distance!" I told my Pokémon.

K9 then started continuously launching fireballs at his foe, while jumping from one branch to another. Nidorino was having trouble climbing up and following him while trying to evade the attacks, until one of them finally connected. Nido was sent flying back down onto a lower branch.

"Keep 'em coming Growlithe, it's working!" I shouted.

Vince was growing angrier. "Nido, use your Peck attack the chop off the branches!"

The Pokémon's horn turned white. He got up and leaped from branch to branch, but instead of going directly after Growlithe, he started targeting the branches on which he was standing in an attempt to make him lose his balance. Slashing limb after limb, wood was starting to fall from everywhere and the tree grew thinner by the seconds. As soon as K9 would land on a wooden swing, its ropes would get cut off, forcing him to jump away. And the flames from all those fireballs started propagating throughout the tree, making the battlefield increasingly dangerous for both Pokémon. The battle was quickly coming to an end and I had to find a way to finish it off.

"I got it!" I screamed. "K9, it's time to try our new move!"

He looked at me and nodded, as he understood the stunt we were about to try to pull off. He stopped jumping around and stood on one of the few branches left, but continued launching using his Ember attack.

"Here's our chance!" said Vince. "Use Peck to cut him down!"

Nidorino used his horn one more time and sliced the offshoot right off of its trunk and both Pokémon started falling to the ground.

"K9, Flame Wheel!" I ordered.

"I've seen that trick before and it's not going to work a second time!" shouted Vince. "Nido, Poison Sting! Let's finish this now!"

Growlithe's body started spinning and caught on fire, while Nidorino's horn grew longer once more and turned pink. Still falling, Nidorino got closer and closer to the flaming body, expecting a collision soon enough. But at the very last second, K9 used the thrust of the fire to deviate his trajectory and position himself on top of his foe. He then stopped spinning and awaited my signal.

"K9! Use Reversal… NOW!"

Along with Flame Wheel, we had been practicing this move for a while now, but Growlithe used to be at a too low level to master it. Though it seemed as though this battle gave him enough experience to evolve to level 19, making him able to use it. And seeing how low his health must have been at that point, this was our last resort to finish this duel.

"Oh, shit!" screamed Vince, who knew what was about to happen.

K9 used the momentum of his Flame Wheel to charge up his attack, and when he got close enough, swung his head at his opponent with every ounce of strength he had left.

Nidorino was sent flying straight down like a bullet and brutally collided with the ground, resulting in a small explosion.

Growlithe landed abruptly shortly after, but managed to get back up.

"YES!" I screamed with my fist in the air.

A cloud of dust was concealing the enemy Pokémon, but when it faded, Nidorino appeared before us. The grass around him had been burned off and the ground was cracked. He was passed out in the middle of a small crater.

' _Nidorino is no longer able to battle.'_ said the judge. _'Growlithe wins the fight in 11 minutes and 34 seconds!'_

The fight was over.

~ End of Chapter 14 ~


	15. Chapter 15: Amy's Comeback!

Chapter 15: Amy's Comeback!

Another great fight still rages as Noah comes out of his first battle. Two brilliant minds, one winner. What will happen? :3

Follow the story if you like sick battles like this one!

* * *

We did it! We really won, holy crap! As soon as the announcement was done, I jumped off of the platform where I had been sitting during the duel and ran straight to my Pokémon in the middle of the battlefield. My K9 turned around and did the same. He jumped in my arms as we were both overjoyed with our victory, but Growlithe had forgotten about his injuries and hurt himself in the process. Though we both laughed about it and he started licking my face. Soon after, Vince also jumped on the field to run for his Pokémon.

"Nido!" he screamed.

As he got to the crater, he slid on his knees and lifted his fainted Pokémon in his arms.

"Are you okay, Nido? I want you to know that you did a great job out there. We both did the best we could. You'll be fine, don't worry."

I decided to put down my Pokémon and headed towards Vince.

"This wasn't an easy fight, Vince." I told him. "You're a great trainer and your Pokémon was amazing! I really wasn't expecting that Dig attack and it would have been the end of us if we hadn't reacted fast enough."

He stood up and shook my hand.

"Thanks Noah, good match!" he said. "I'll make sure to train my Pokémon even more and I'll get my revenge, that's a promise."

He winked.

"I'll hold you to that." I said, and we both laughed.

Vince was a really good guy. I was glad I got to battle him and we were for sure going to be friends after this.

The suspended platform suddenly started coming back down and the professor's assistant came to us.

"Congratulations to both of you, this was a great fight!" she said. "Vince, you demonstrated your skills as a trainer by how well trained your Pokémon was. It isn't an easy task to teach such a move to a Pokémon who shouldn't be supposed to know it, and your Nidorino proved to be extremely powerful and well behaved."

"Thank you, miss." said Vince.

"And Noah," she resumed. "You were able to quickly understand and assess the situation from the very start. And when a sudden and unexpected change occurred, you were able to adapt immediately. You used your Pokémon's moves and the environment of the stage in a very unconventional way, which is what allowed you to win this match. Bravo!"

"Thank you." I blushed.

"Alright," she continued. "If you could both call back your Pokémon to their Pokéball and give them to me, I will take them to the school's clinic where their wounds will be treated. I'll also make sure to record the outcome of the battle and tell the professor that Noah will move on to the second round. Feel free to take your time. When you are ready, you may head back to the meeting point where you will wait for the instructions for the second round. Good luck for the rest of your run!"

Vince and I both thanked her at the same time and slowly headed back to the PBD #1.

On our way there we talked about the fight, the assignment and we got to know a bit more about each other.

"Who do you think you'll be facing next?" he asked me.

"Hmm… I don't know, actually." I answered. "According to the bracket, it should be either Jenn or Connor, but I don't really know either of them or their lineup!"

As we got closer to our destination, I saw in the distance a large white screen hanging on the wall of the school building, on which there was one of the battles being broadcasted.

"Hey look at that!" I said. "Let's go check it out."

Some other people had already finished their matches and they were all watching the duel on the big screen. Among them, there was Xavier, Kai, Mendy, Robin, Livia, Denzel and Thomas, who all seemed to have won their respective battle. I ran towards Thomas to tell him about my victory.

"Yo Thomas! I'm guessing you won your match." I said. "I also won mine! We're going to round 2!"

"Mah man!" he answered happily. "Good for you! And yeah, I won against Nic, my Kirlia had a pretty big advantage over his Mienfoo… But now the real challenge is coming up."

"You'll battling Denzel, am I right?" I asked.

"He brought out his Grotle in the first round and wiped his opponent in a few minutes even though he was facing a Torkoal." he said. "His Pokémon are certainly not to be messed with, but I'm still confident in my strategy."

"Which is?" I asked.

"Since he brought out his Grotle, he only has Luxio and Scyther left. If he chooses Scyther, my Quilladin would be greatly disadvantaged against it. But on the other hand though, if I pick Monferno, I would have the upper hand. The thing is, he probably already knows that, so going with Luxio is his safest bet."

"So hypothetically, you pretty much have to choose Monferno, while he has to choose his Luxio." I deducted.

"Correct." he said. "And I have an ace up my sleeve, which he won't see coming…"

"I can't wait to see your match!" I said, enthusiastically.

"Anyways, let's watch the match!" said Thomas. "It's Amy against Chloe."

As soon as he said Amy's name, my attention immediately turned to the match, as I didn't even realize that I was witnessing Chloe's other Pokémon for the first time. Amy chose her Cinccino for this first round, while Chloe picked Phantump.

"What an interesting match!" I said. "Both Pokémon are immune to each other's main attack type!"

"That's right," agreed Thomas. "So far, it's been a really good match, and surprisingly both trainers taught their Pokémon a wide variety of moves, which allowed them to still do damage! I'm very impressed."

Various cameras were placed inside the PBD in order to record every possible angle and all the sounds as well.

' _Cinccino, Bullet Seed!'_ ordered Amy.

' _Phantump, Double Team!'_ shouted Chloe.

"Phantump keeps on creating doubles in order to make itself harder to hit," commented Thomas. "But since Cinccino has Skill Link, she is able to shoot a lot more projectiles and at a much faster rate! She's been able to keep it away until know, but if she lets her guard down, she'll get hit with it's Curse. The battle would take a whole different turn."

Curse is a move that haunts the afflicted target, making it increasingly weaker over time.

"And if it hits, Chloe will just have to stall long enough for Amy's Pokémon to become very weak." I concluded. "At that point, she will be able to land the final blow."

"Right again." said Thomas. "And on top of that, her Phantump has the ability Harvest, which makes berries grow out of its body and allows it to heal by eating them. So even if Amy manages to connect her attacks a few times…"

"Phantump can just heal up before its situation gets too critical." I said, as I finished his sentence.

"I would never have thought that these girls could have such impressive combat strategies!" said Thomas, impressed. "I mean, not because they are girls or anything… but still."

"We are at the Elite Pokémon Academy after all." I said.

Meanwhile, the pace of the battle started slowing down, as Cinccino was becoming tired from dealing with all those doubles.

' _Now's your chance, Phantump!'_ shouted Chloe. _'Use your Curse!'_

' _Don't give up, Cinccino!'_ yelled Amy. _'Block it with your Light Screen!'_

The little scarfed Pokémon did her best to raise her barrier in time, but another Phantump appeared behind her and managed to touch her back, afflicting its Curse on her.

"Oh no!" I murmured. I was getting worried for Amy. I was really hoping she would win this battle.

' _It's over now!'_ confidently said Chloe. _'Phantump, one last time, use Double Team! Then use Feint Attack!'_

' _Cinccino, Bullet Seed!'_ desperately ordered Amy to her fainting Pokémon. _'Get rid of those clones!'_

The Pokémon launched her projectiles as fast as she could, until only one Phantump remained.

' _We got her.'_ said Amy. _(Wait... what?) 'Use Fling!'_

The Pokémon revealed an item, which had been concealed under her scarf. It was a berry! One of Phantump's berries, to be precise. Cinccino infused the fruit with Dark energy, covering the object with a dark-purple flame, then threw it straight to her foe. The berry normally should not have dealt that much damage, but it collided directly with Phantump's head and since it was a Ghost-type, the move was super effective!

Both trainers stood still on the screen and everybody who was watching the show went silent.

' _Phantump is no longer able to battle… Cinccino wins the match!'_ said the announcer.

What an incredible battle! I was the one to break the silence, as I jumped in the air and let out a "Woohooooooo!". Everybody else then started clapping and cheering for the great performance of both trainers.

After shaking each other's hand, the girls headed to where we were all gathered. When I saw Amy arrive, I ran to congratulate her.

"That was amazing, Amy!" I told her. "What a come back! Your match was being broadcasted on the giant screen over there."

"Really? Thanks, Noah." she replied.

"It was crazy! I didn't even see it when Cinccino grabbed the berry!"

"It was when she got hit by the Curse." she answered.

"NO. WAY." I couldn't believe it. "So, you purposely let yourself get hit to take advantage of the situation? I would never have thought of that!"

"Hahaha, thanks!" she laughed. "I had to find a way of getting out of trouble or the battle was over, so I took a chance and tried that. How about your battle?"

"Who, me?" I replied. "Oh, yeah! I won. It was a tough match against Vince, but my Growlithe came out on top in the end."

"Good for you!" she congratulated. "Now, we just have to win our next match and maybe we'll get to fight against each other."

She winked. It made me blush a little...

"Anyways, I'll go check on Cinccino at the infirmary." she said, running away. "Good luck in round 2!"

"Yeah, you too!" I screamed as I waved.

Whenever I talked to her, I'd get all sweaty and anxious, but excited at the same time. And DAMN! After seeing those strategies and her skills as a trainer… _(Was I falling in love?)_

"Alright lads, come over here!" announced Professor Maple. "Now that the last fight has been completed, we can now proceed to round 2. Here is the bracket for this round:"

In Group 1:

Xavier vs. Kai

Mendy vs. Robin

Livia vs. Ben

And in Group 2:

Denzel vs. Thomas

William vs. Amy

Noah vs. Jenn

"And there you have it!" continued the teacher. "The matches will begin in a few minutes. Please come over to the desk to register your next Pokémon. And remember, you must choose a different Pokémon from your first match!"

Round 2 was about to begin.

~ End of Chapter 15 ~


	16. Chapter 16: An Unfavorable Matchup

Chapter 16: An Unfavorable Matchup

The second round of the tournament has finally begun! But despite his initial confidence, Noah finds himslef in a very troublesome situation. How is he and Wooper going to get out of this one?

I've been waiting to write this one for a while now! Leave your thoughts in the comments... Enjoy:)

* * *

This time around, I didn't think about who to pick as much as I did in the first round. I could have gone for Heracross to warm him up a little and slowly get him used to friendly _(non-lethal)_ battles. But in the end, I decided against it and went for the safer choice instead. There wasn't a single doubt in my mind that Wooper was going to do great.

"Please proceed to PBD #6. NEXT!"

I made my way to the dome, and when I passed through the doors of the arena, I instantly thought to myself:

'Yes! How can it possibly go wrong now!'

The conditions of the battlefield were perfect for Wooper. It seemed to be a swamp-themed field. It had a bunch of little puddles everywhere with lily pads floating over them and two big willow trees that had their roots coming out of the ground. My little Water Pokémon would be able to dive from pool to pool, freely using the environment to his advantage.

I took his Pokéball out of my bag and threw it into the air to set him free. As soon as he saw the water, he jumped into it and started splashing around. He even sprayed me with his Water Gun.

"Keep some of that for the battle!" I laughed.

I let him have fun a little while we were waiting, and shortly after, the doors finally opened on the other side of the battlefield. It was my next opponent, Jenn, who just arrived. She was accompanied by another one of the professor's assistants, who would be the judge for this match. When we saw them coming in, we stopped fooling around and Wooper jumped out of the pool. We then both went to greet them.

"Hey!" I said. "I'm Noah."

"And I'm Jenn," she replied. "Good luck for the battle! I hope you're ready."

"You bet!" I answered with confidence. "Good luck to you too."

"Alright," began the assistant. "My is Allan. I will be the judge for this battle."

Allan was a tall and slim guy, who had a little mustache and the same white lab coat as all the other assistants. And like everyone else, he had his little pad and his pen to mark down the results and his analysis of the battle.

"The rules for this round will be the same as for the first match," he continued. "It's a one on one battle with the Pokémon you both already chose. Whenever a Pokémon becomes unable to fight or if I decide to put an end to the duel, the winner will then be decided. You may now return to your platforms so that we can get this thing started."

Jenn and I both looked at each other straight in the eye and I could almost hear her say 'I'm gonna win this one.' in her mind.

We both turned around and headed to our positions.

"The stage is yours!" I told Wooper, as we awaited the signal to begin the match. "Let's show them what we're made of! The odds should be on our side for this one, but still… we shouldn't let our guard down."

My little buddy simply looked at me with the same big smile as he always does, nodded and readied himself to fight.

' _Okay!'_ said the announcer in a scraping voice, as the sound reverberated through the loud speakers. _'There's 20 minutes on the clock. Both trainers, please release your Pokémon.'_

'Come on, we got this!' I kept telling myself.

Jenn took a Pokéball out of her purse, which became bigger when she clicked on the middle button. She grabbed it with both hands, lifted her leg, then threw it as though it was a baseball. The Pokéball curved, then hit the ground just in front of the middle line separating the field in two. It unleashed a ray of light that soon faded away to reveal her chosen Pokémon.

"Oh no." I murmured.

' _Alright, both parties are now ready!'_ exclaimed the announcer.

"This is bad..."

' _The battle will begin in 3… 2… 1… Fight!'_

"Go, Maractus!" shouted Jenn.

This was the worst possible outcome.

Wooper only had one true weakness, and that was Grass-type Pokémon. Even though we had the advantage of the field, Maractus was resistant to both Water AND Ground-type moves and her attacks were going to be super-mega-ultra effective against my Pokémon. I barely had enough time to process the situation and Jenn had already begun her assault.

"Maractus!" she screamed. "Get closer to Wooper and blast him with Pin Missile!"

The Cactus Pokémon started moving in zig zags, as she quickly approached her target. The needles on her body started popping off as she sent them flying into the air before they would start raining back down on Wooper's head. With almost no time to react, I couldn't think of any way to fight back.

"Joker, evade the attack!" I ordered. "Hide under water!"

Wooper swiftly maneuvered around the falling projectiles and barely manage to get to the water before one of them could connect. I deducted that it would safer for him if he remained inside the water pools as much as possible. That would allow him to hide and catch his breath before launching attacks of his own.

"Alright, now use your Water Absorb to power up a Water Gun!"

Just as I told him, he sucked in as much water as he could from around him until he became bloated like a balloon. He then proceeded to unleash a power beam of water with such immense pressure that there was no way Maractus could have possibly avoided it. She got knocked backwards a bit, but stood on her feet and took the hit face first without even flinching.

"Maractus, swarm that puddle with more Pin Missiles!" commanded Jenn.

Once again, the Grass Pokémon started closing in on her target and launched another storm of bullets towards Wooper.

"Quick! Jump to the other pool!" I told Wooper, who managed to move out of her attack's range. "Now hit her with another Water Gun!"

Without thinking, Wooper blasted his opponent with one more Water Gun. Curiously though, the Pokémon seemed completely unfazed by the attack this time around.

"Thanks for that, Noah." laughed Jenn. "That should be more than enough!"

At that moment, I looked at Maractus and realised what was going on. I peeked at my Pokédex, which read 'Ability: Storm Drain' _(shit)_. All this time she was taking the hits on purpose in order to boost up her special attack! And now it was about to backfire big time…

"Maractus, use Mega Drain!" ordered my opponent.

A bright green light appeared around the Pokémon's body like a powerful and dreadful aura. The light then converged into one smaller ball of energy that Maractus was holding between her hands.

"WOOPER! Get out of there now!" I yelled as hard as I could, but it was too late. Maractus released the energy contained within the sphere, which exploded in a single beam of light. It struck Wooper, who wasn't even close to seeing it coming. The laser blew him all the way to the end of the field and knocked him on the wall, sucking all of its health away. In fact, it was so strong that after it stopped, even the grass underneath had been burned to a crisp and had its life completely drained away from it. My Pokémon was now barely hanging on to the last ounce of energy in his body, while Maractus had been completely healed from all the damaged she was dealt previously.

'I'm so stupid!' I thought. If I had checked my Pokédex before doing anything reckless, I would not have found myself in this situation. And now, my Pokémon was paying the price for my mistake.

"WOOPERRRRR!" I screamed to my Pokémon who was still lying on the ground. At that point, I was certain the battle was over and I was just waiting for the judge to end the combat. It made me so sad to see all of our hard work being destroyed in an instant that I shed a tear.

But after a few seconds, the referee still hadn't said anything. So, I opened my eyes. Although he was bleeding, had bruises all over his body and could barely even stand on his little shaky legs, my Wooper got back up.

"No way." gasped Jenn. "That should have been more than enough to end it."

"Wooper?" I sobbed.

I couldn't believe it. I already knew that he was tough little guy, but to think that he would take such a blow and still be ready for more. I couldn't stop myself from bursting into tears. I was so happy and relieved.

Wooper then slowly and painfully started limping towards one of the puddles, but of course the battle wasn't over and Jenn wouldn't just let him walk freely.

"Maractus, go and finish him off with your Needle Arm." she ordered.

The needles on her Pokémon's right arm grew longer and sharper, turning it into a sword with dozens of deadly razors on it. She hopped all the way to Wooper's position and tried to strike him with an aerial attack, but she missed, hitting the ground just beside him. The force of the blow made him roll over right next to the puddle. Maractus immediately jumped back to strike her opponent a second time, but he managed to waddle his way into the pool, allowing him to evade the attack.

"God damn it!" cursed Jenn, who was starting to get irritated. "C'mon now Maractus, blast that puddle with Pin Missile!"

The Pokémon positioned herself over the water and bombarded the puddle for at least ten whole seconds with a continuous barrage of missiles coming out of her body. When she stopped, there were no signs of Wooper at first, but soon after his head emerged from another one of the puddles.

"Ha! Quick, use Mud Shot!" I told my Pokémon.

The opposing Pokémon hadn't caught on to the fact that he came out from another pool yet and she didn't have enough time to react to the incoming attack. With how much power he had left, Wooper's move barely even tickled his target, but it did succeed in making her and her trainer angry.

"Don't just stand around, get him!" demanded Jenn. "Needle Arm!"

Maractus leaped towards Joker, who simply dove back inside the water and disappeared.

"Where did he go this time?" impatiently questioned my opponent.

Everything finally made sense in my head. Although all of the puddles seemed to be separated on the surface, they were actually connected together with water tunnels that passed underground. And since Wooper had been playing in the water before the match even started, he must have noticed it back then. Using this to our advantage, maybe we still had a chance.

"Wooper, now!" I yelled. My Pokémon then came out of the water from behind Maractus. He hit her with another Mud Shot and immediately dove back underwater. She didn't even have enough time to see from where she got hit. When she turned around, he was already gone and jumped out of a different pool, launching yet another Mud Shot. This time she quickly turned around and tried to hit him with a Pin Missile, but it was still too late. He was already back underwater. The battle had turned into a game of Whack-a-Diglett, and as it went on, it seemed as though Wooper was slowly getting his energy back, using Water Absorb to recover a bit of health.

He kept jumping higher and higher from the water and moving to the next puddle faster and faster. Maractus couldn't follow his movements, until she stopped trying to hit him for a while. She stood still and closed her eyes, as though she was trying to concentrate. She then suddenly opened her eyes while Wooper was still underwater, she hopped to one of the puddles and stood face to face with him as he was just coming out of the water.

"Needle Arm!" shouted Jenn. Her Pokémon heard the command and immediately responded by throwing a hook punch to Wooper who ricocheted on the water and landed in a puddle further away.

My heart stopped. Things were only starting to get better, but my little Joker still had very few health points left.

"C'mon! Hang in there!" I screamed to my Pokémon, who was now slowly sinking underwater, while letting out a continuous stream of bubbles. But then, the bubbles stopped rising to the surface.

"Is it over now?" asked Jenn. But once again, the referee refused to call the end of the match. And then all of a sudden, the bubbles started popping out again, but this time they would cover the whole puddle. More and more kept coming, until the water in the middle started rising like a mountain. The water then exploded as something came flying out of the water, splashing everything within a wide radius.

Whatever that was came falling back down to the ground and collided hard enough with the earth to make it tremble, as a loud 'BANG!' was heard.

I was facing away, since I turned my face to avoid the big splash from earlier, but when I turned back and looked at the field… my jaw dropped. Both Jenn and her Pokémon stood in silence before this unexpected spectacle.

What was standing in front of all of us now was truly amazing. Something I never thought would happen at that moment.

It was my little Joker who emerged from the water, but something about him was different. Arms had appeared on his body. His tail grew bigger… his whole body grew bigger.

My Wooper evolved into Quagsire. And there he was, standing tall and brave as if he had regained all of his strength.

"No way…" I said, softly. "THAT'S AWESOOOOOOME!"

I jumped into the air and started laughing. I was so happy and so proud of him. He turned around and lifted his thumb up, telling me he was ready to get back into it.

"Alright," I said. "Things are about to go down!"

"Fuck." complained Jenn, as she snapped out of it and realised that the battle was about to continue.

There were only 8 minutes left on the clock and that was more than enough for us to make a comeback.

"Quagsire, Mud Bomb!" I called out. We had never practiced that move before, but I figured it was worth giving it a shot, since there were still so many things I didn't know about my Pokémon. Quagsire's cheeks started bloating, and instinctively, he launched a huge ball of mud and dirt out of his mouth that headed for Maractus like a falling meteor.

"Dodge left!" shouted Jenn.

"Joker, dive in the water!" I said. No sooner said than done, Quagsire was going head first into the puddle and emerged from another one just beside Maractus in an instant.

"Use Headbutt!" I ordered. My Pokémon then moved his head backwards and swung right at the Grass Pokémon.

"Protect yourself with Spiky Shield!" told Jenn to her Pokémon, who placed her arms in front of her body. The spikes on them then grew bigger and sharper. Joker had already launched his attack and it was now too late to stop, so the needles hit him directly on the forehead. Both Pokémon were knocked away by the blow, but Quagsire was the one who took the most damage from that. Nonetheless, he was still standing, with blood dripping from his head.

"Needle Arm!" shouted Jenn, whose Pokémon dashed right back at Joker with her dangerous weapon.

"Iron Defense!" I told Quagsire, would wouldn't have enough time to dodge. He placed both his arms in a cross shape in front of him and covered his whole body with a coat of metal as he braced for the impact. Maractus whipped her arm on her target as hard as she could. The blow was so strong that her spikes pierced through Joker's armored skin. But did not budge. Her arm was now stuck to him and she was unable to move.

"Get out of there!" desperately screamed Jenn. She tried pulling herself out of there but it was no use.

"One more time!" I ordered Quagsire. "Use Headbutt!"

"Maractus, Spiky Shield!" ordered Jenn.

As Joker's who body bent backwards to charge up his smash attack, Maractus who was still stuck to her opponent covered her whole body in spikes to protect herself from the impact. But that didn't scare my Pokémon.

Despite the field of thorns awaiting Quagsire's forehead, he slammed his solid cranium right on his opponent. But this time, instead of going through his skin, the needles on Maractus' body cracked under the pressure. They weren't hard enough to withhold the pressure and Quagsire went straight through them, knocking the opposing Pokémon head on.

The collision forced Maractus off of Joker's body and smacked her straight to the earth. She was knocked out.

' _Since Maractus is no longer able to battle, the win goes to Noah and Quagsire! Congrats!'_ announced the judge.

~ End of Chapter 16 ~


	17. Chapter 17: Clash of the Titans

Chapter 17: Clash of the Titans.

The second of the tournament comes to an end! Who will come out on top? What lurks in the shadows?

* * *

"YESSSS!" I screamed as I jumped onto the field. I ran towards my newly evolved Pokémon to take him into my arms, and when he turned around and saw me, he did the same. He jumped into my arms, making us both fall to the ground. For some reason, I wasn't expecting him to be so heavy. He used to be so small! And then, he sprayed me right on the face with one of his Water Guns, drenching me from head to toes. He may have gotten bigger than before, but he surely still was the same old prankster!

While we were both still celebrating this victory, Jenn slowly walked up to her fainted Pokémon, then stopped right in front of her. She didn't seem sad or anything, nothing like that. She looked angry… disappointed. She silently called back her Pokémon to her Pokéball and tossed it to the Professor's assistant who just came back down from his platform. The mood suddenly changed in the arena, so we stopped fooling around and got back up to congratulate her for the great battle.

"We both know it should not have ended this way," she snapped. I didn't know what to say. "My Maractus was clearly dominating your puny Wooper. If it wasn't for that random evolution, I would have ended you. You just got lucky."

The assistant coughed to bring the attention to him, then interposed himself between us. "Well, actually," he clarified, "It is true that your Pokémon had the upper hand during the battle due to its type advantage, but I don't think that Wooper's evolution was quite as _random_ as you're saying it was."

"What do you mean?", I questioned.

"That's right," he continued. "You may have noticed that during the battle, despite holding on to the last bit of health he had left, Wooper kept getting back up and coming back for more. My guess would be that he knew just how much this battle was important to his trainer, and so in order to not disappoint you, Noah, he never gave up and pushed himself to the limit. And that is what has caused him to evolve so suddenly. Not luck, but determination, the will to fight and to live up to his trainer's expectations and wishes. And if you ask me, even if he evolved, Quagsire still took a considerable amount of hits beforehand. He still won despite his unfavorable position."

"Whatever." fumed Jenn. "I'm out of here." And before I could say anything, she had already exited the dome.

"Well… that went well." I said.

"Don't mind her," replied Allan. "She's not the first one I've seen who reacted like that. All the rich kids around here are always so used to getting everything they want that they simply can't take it when they lose. You and you're Pokémon did a great job. I'll make sure to mark some good comments on your evaluation."

"Oh… well, thank you sir." I mumbled.

"You can leave your Pokémon with me," he said. "Go back to your classmates. You might be able to catch the end of one of the other battles."

"Alright." I said.

And so, I entrusted my Pokémon to Allan and walked out of the PBD proudly. I never thought I would make it passed round 1, and here we were completing round 2!

Back at the meeting point, there were only two other people waiting for the next round; Xavier, which didn't come as a surprise to me, and William, who was sitting alone on a bench far away from Xavier. That meant that Amy had lost her match against him… what a shame! I looked around, expecting to see her watching one of the other battles, but I couldn't find her anywhere. So, I walked up to William.

"Hey man!" I said. "Have you seen Amy?"

William looked at me, then immediately looked away. His head seemed to slowly sink down into his shirt and his skin started turning red. He kept both his hands locked together while rolling his thumbs.

"Erm… yeah," he stuttered nervously. "I- I think she went to the infirmary."

' _WHAT?'_ I thought.

I left for the infirmary without saying anything else.

' _Did something happen to her?'_

I was really hoping she was alright. I ran through the academy's long hallways, almost bumping into other students at least two times, until I finally found her. There she was, with all her limbs and no injuries. She was just petting her fainted Pokémon who was resting on a bed next to her _(Of course, she didn't go to the nurse for HER injuries… but for her Pokémon's injuries!)_. She looked up and saw me on the other side of the door.

"Oh," she gasped. "Hey Noah!"

"Hey, how did it go?" I asked.

She looked down at her fainted Fennekin with sorrow in her eyes.

"I've never been so badly defeated in my life!" she said with a forced laugh.

"Damn, was he that strong?" I asked.

"I mean… I don't know." she started. "At first, the battle was going very well. Fennekin was fighting against his Magneton, and it seemed as though we had the advantage throughout the duel. At least I thought so..."

"What do you mean?" I questioned, confused.

"Well, at one point the situation just flipped," she said. "All of Fennekin's attacks stopped working, and before I knew it the battle was over. It was as if he was waiting for the right moment, then finished us off with a second."

"I see," I said, thoughtful. "Will might be timid, but he is one very smart kid."

"And a great trainer apparently!" she laughed.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to find out for myself if I get to battle him!" I exclaimed.

"Wait, that means you won your match?!" asked Amy.

"Yep! My Wooper was in a really bad spot, but he evolved into Quagsire and made an insane comeback!"

"Wow that's great!" praised Amy, grabbing me into her arms. My face turned red and my whole body turned stiff like a stick.

When she let go of her grip, I felt slightly uncomfortable, but she just looked at me with her beautiful eyes and her contagious smile. It made me feel much more at ease.

"So, I think there is still one match or two that are still going on." I told her. "Do you want to come out and watch them with me? But I mean... I'll understand if you'd rather stay with your Pokémon, that's alright. I would probably do the same if I -"

"Sure, I'll come with you." she said, cutting me off mid-sentence.

"Oh," I gasped, surprised. "Okay then! Let's go."

Amy left her Pokémon at the nurse's office to let her rest some more, and we both headed back out to see the end of the remaining battles. Everybody else had gathered on the stands to watch both battles being broadcasted on the giant screen.

The wide monitor was split in half. On the left side, it was Mendy's Absol against Robin's Makuhita. And on the right side of the screen, it was Thomas' Monferno versus Denzel's Luxio. Two intense battles with four amazing trainers! This was for surely going to be entertaining. On one side, the two strongest female trainers of our class, and on the other, two of the strongest guys out there.

The battle wasn't looking so great for Mendy. Despite his small stature and his weight, Robin's Makuhita was surprisingly fast, and his strong fists were very effective against Mendy's Dark-type Pokémon. You could almost see smoke coming out of her ears as her face was starting to get red with anger. Absol had already taken quite a bit of damage and was force to evade everyone of Makuhita's attacks, who was crushing rocks with his bare hands. The rain of punches left no room for Mendy to order an attack, forcing her to stand by and watch as her Pokémon was being endlessly chased. She understood very well the situation she was in, and it infuriated her.

On the other screen, Denzel's and Thomas' Pokémon seemed to fight at equal strength. Whenever Monferno would land a Fire Spin or a Blaze Kick, Luxio would retaliate with a Thunder Fang or a Shock Wave. Their fight had already been going on for a while, but none of the Pokémon were ready to give up just yet, and so were their trainers. Denzel kept his cool as usual and Thomas was very focused. He had been awaiting this moment for a long time now and the time to prove himself and test his strength had finally come. Thomas was starting to sweat a bit. Maybe he was starting to get nervous? Then all of a sudden, Thomas shouted:

"DENZEL!"

Both Pokémon stopped their fight and retreated to their trainer. All eyes turned to them. What was Thomas planning?

"I think we've both been dancing for long enough, what do you say?" said Thomas.

"Heh," laughed Denzel. "I guess you're right."

"Let's put an end to this, shall we?" continued Thomas. "And come at me for real this time. I want you to fight me with all you've got!"

"If that's what you want," calmly responded Denzel. "Luxio, use Charge!"

The Pokémon let out a mighty roar as his whole body jolted. An electrical armor was now covering his body, as though it had been struck by lightning.

"Monferno! Use Bulk Up!" shouted Thomas to his Pokémon.

It was the Fire Pokémon's turn to demonstrate its battle cry. Monferno pounded his chest with his fists, then began hitting the ground until a great amount of heat started emanating from his body.

Everybody started cheering, completely ignoring the other battle that was simultaneously still raging, for they new that it was about to go down.

"Look at that!" said Amy. "You can almost see the smoke coming out of Monferno's body!"

"Yeah! You certainly don't want to get Thomas' Pokémon angry," I told Amy. "'Cause if you do, it's going to get hot in here. And now with Bulk Up, his strength is going to be through the roof for the next few minutes."

"But Denzel's Pokémon also put up his Charge," started Amy. "Which means that his Electric attacks are going to be far more powerful. And on top of that, this electric field around him is going to grant him a lot of defense!"

"Thomas is going to have to end it quick." I said.

' _Come on man, you can do this!'_ I told myself.

Monferno positioned himself, lowering his center of gravity and placing one hand to the ground. He looked right in front of him, awaiting his master's command. Luxio took stance, widening the space between his legs to strengthen his stability. The tension was rising. Thomas was the first to make a move.

"Monferno, Mach Punch!" he ordered. With blinding speed, the Pokémon dashed towards his opponent, but barely missed as his fist brushed Luxio's fur.

"Again!" shouted Thomas, and so his Pokémon jumped right back towards Denzel's. But somehow, Luxio managed to dodge every single one of the attacks under his foe's blows, which would always barely scratch him.

"C'mon Monferno! Pummel him with Power Up Punches!" yelled Thomas. His Pokémon ceaselessly swung at Luxio with increasingly dangerous and powerful punches, until Denzel launched an attack of his own.

"Thunder Fang!" he ordered. With great agility, his Pokémon maneuvered around the storm of fists thrown in his direction, but before he could make it close enough to Monferno, he got hit and was knocked away.

"Yes!" shouted Thomas. "Finish this. Monferno, Blaze Kick!" but his Pokémon stood still. So, he shouted again. "Blaze Kick, Monferno! C'mon!", but there were still no answers. Thomas went silent and his eyes turned blank as he realised what had happened. His Pokémon was paralyzed.

"It's over," said Denzel. "Shock Wave." His Pokémon charged up an electrical ball inside his mouth. It grew until it became to big to contain and released its energy at the opponent, striking him head at full force and exploded upon contact. Monferno fell to the ground, unable to move.

To everyone's surprise, the battle ended quickly, whispers started being heard in the crowd.

"What happened?" asked Amy.

"I see…" I said. "So that was his plan from the start." Amy looked at me in confusion. "Since the beginning, Monferno's attacks seemed to always miss Luxio by a hair. But I think he was letting him barely brush him on purpose."

"Why would he do that?" she asked.

"Luxio had his electrical coat on because of Charge, remember?" I continued. "So, whenever Monferno would brush his fur, a small amount of that electricity would be passed on to him. And by the time Denzel decided to launch his attack -"

"Monferno accumulated a pretty big amount of energy," completed Amy.

"Exactly," I resumed. "And so, when he finally hit him, Luxio probably unleashed all of the electricity it had left at once, which was enough to paralyze his opponent."

"What a bold strategy," said Amy. "But wait, how did you deduct all that?"

"Well, I saw the same technique being used before!" I laughed nervously, scratching the back of my head. "I watch a lot of professional Pokémon battles during my free time, and my favorite trainer, Dash Junior, used the same technique with his Manectric to win his first Grand Champion Battle."

"You sure love Pokémon battles," giggled Amy. "It's kinda cute." I blushed and smiled nervously.

Both trainers walked towards the center of the stage and shook each other's hand.

"That was a great battle, Thomas." said Denzel.

Thomas stood in silence for a while. He had the same face as before, the same empty expression. "I knew there was no way I would beat you today," he said.

Denzel simply looked at him and listened.

"I just wanted to see how far my Pokémon and I had progressed in the last few weeks, and that battle just confirmed me that I still have a lot of work to do if I want to reach my goal. So, thank you for making me realize this." Thomas tightened his grip on Denzel's hand. "Next time we face each other, I won't be the same trainer as I was today. Next time, I will win, and you better not go easy on me this time."

Denzel also tightened his grip in response. "I'll be looking forward to that day," he said. Both trainers then proceeded to exit the dome to return with the others. A new rivalry was born.

When everybody had finally calmed down after this heated battle, the attention returned the other ongoing battle. But to everyone's surprise, it was already over.

"What? What happened?" people would ask.

Mendy's Absol was standing on top of Robin's Makuhita, but no one saw what happened.

"I don't understand," I said, confused. "How did Absol make such a comeback? Wasn't she clearly disadvantaged against Robin's Fighting Pokémon?"

"I don't know," said Amy. "I didn't see anything!"

From what I could hear from the people around us, Absol ended the battle in one move. I couldn't believe it! It surely seemed strange, but I was happy for her. The two trainers hopped off of their platforms and reached the middle of the arena.

"That was incredible!" shouted Robin, with her usual overwhelming energy. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" bluntly asked Mendy.

"Well, I was sure Makuhita hit you with his Brick Break, but somehow his swing passed right through Absol's body!"

"I don't know what you mean," replied Mendy. "She just dodged it and counter attacked."

"Wow! Either way, that was a great match!" said Robin, who didn't seem sad at all. She patted her Pokémon's head before giving him to the Professor's assistant. "You did well, little buddy. Good luck on your next matches, Mendy!"

As all the battles of round 2 had now ended, all of our classmates got up from their benches to go congratulate the winners. While I went to join Thomas, Amy decided to go see Robin.

"I'll go see my friend. Let's catch up later!" she told me.

' _Alright!'_ I thought. Oddly, the only person who didn't come to see the last competitors of this round was Xavier, who left and went back inside the school's building. I guess he was just too cool to talk to his potential opponents.

Thomas finally appeared in front of me. "Hey man!" I said. "That was such a great match out there. I swear, everybody stopped looking at Mendy's and Robin's fight just to watch you two. And your Monferno surely became much strong -"

"He could have ended this fight whenever he wanted." he interrupted. I didn't know what to say. He still had the same look on his face. "He was stronger than me in every possible way." I felt really bad for him and wanted to reassure him.

"You know," I started. "It's alright to -"

"But you know what I realized?" he said, cutting me off again. He raised his fist and looked at me with burning passion in his eyes. "I JUST GOTTA WORK EVEN HARDER TO BEAT HIM!"

"That's the spirit!" I laughed. There he was, the Thomas I knew!

" _Father? Yes, this is Xavier. I think I've got something for you."_

 _(...)_

" _There was a shadow behind the girl's Pokémon. A girl in my class."_

 _(...)_

" _I'm pretty sure it was THAT."_

 _(...)_

" _Yes. You can come and see it for yourself tomorrow."_

 _(...)_

" _Alright, I'll keep you updated."_

~ End of Chapter 17 ~


	18. Chapter 18: A Strange Visit

Chapter 18: A Strange Visit.

The students of class 23-A get the rest of the day off to prepare for the rest of the competition. Noah gets a visit from a stranger and finally gets the long awaited answer to his questions about his father.

* * *

"Alright lads, gather 'round!"

Now that everybody's battle was over, we assembled around our teacher to hear the details for the rest of the tournament.

"The second round of the competition has now come to an end!" he started. "As you might already know, only the victors of this round will be able to move on to the next round.

In Group 1, the three students who came out on top are:

Xavier, Mendy and Ben!

And in Group 2, the three winners are:

Denzel, Noah and William!"

"Now, some of you may have noticed that there is an odd number of competitors in each group. Because of that, the rest of the event will unfold as such:

The contestant who have accumulated the most points during their two previous matches, in each group, will be allowed to move up directly to the semi finals! On the other hand, the other two candidates of each group will have to fight against each other for their place in the semi finals."

This announcement didn't come as a surprise to me. It only made sense, considering the amount of people in our class. We all already knew who these two trainers would be.

"In Group 1, with a total of 167 points accumulated: Xavier passes on to the semi finals!" announced the professor.

Everybody in the class started clapping. Even though the guy was a dick, I had to admit he was a pretty damn good fighter, and 167 was probably the closest you could get to a perfect score.

"And from Group 2, with a total of 163 points: Denzel proceeds to the semi finals!"

A general astonishment was heard through the crowd. So close to Xavier's score! Of course, we knew his talent was up there. But to be this close to the class' most likely #1 trainer!

Professor Maple resumed his speech:

"Congratulations to both of you for your great performance! And of course, the rest of you also did a great job. In fact, you all deserve a break for your hard work. Take the rest of your day to prepare for tomorrow, because all of your Pokémon will need to be well rested for the rounds to come! Now then, take care of yourselves and your Pokémon. You're all dismissed!"

Even though I was still ready for some more action, my Pokémon did need a bit of rest _(Ah man! All those laps around the pond should have made them unstoppable beasts!)_. What's more, the final rounds we're most likely going to involve longer and tougher battles where all of the Pokémon in our teams would have to participate.

"ALRIGHT!" screamed Thomas, who was all fired-up. "This means more time to train my Pokémon. No time to rest! See ya tomorrow Noah!" In the blink of an eye, he came in and out of the school with all of his belongings and his Pokémon who were at the infirmary, and before I could say anything, he was already heading home at full throttle.

Then, Amy passed by on her way out. "I'll have to attend to my Pokémon's injuries," she told me. "So, I'll be heading home for tonight and get some rest. You should too, Noah. Good luck for tomorrow!"

"Thanks!" I said. She winked at me and left, joining two other girls ahead.

There didn't seem to be any plans being made between any of the guys either. Everybody decided to head home, so I did the same. I went back inside the school and walked all the way to the nurse's office. I gave her my student ID and requested to get my companions back.

"Ah, yes. Here you are sweetie!" said nurse Joy. I thanked her and walked out of the building, leaving my Pokémon inside their Pokéballs, so they could sleep a little bit before dinner.

I exited through the academy's main doors, and as I walked down the long staircase, someone called my name from all the way down.

"Noah!" shouted the man. At first, he was too far away to identify, but once I made it to the end of the stairway, I could finally see him more clearly. I didn't know the man - or at least I thought I didn't, but he surely seemed to know _me_. The man was wearing a plaid brown suit, with a dark shirt and tie underneath, as well as a top hat that matched the design and colors of the coat. He looked quite old with his gray hair combed backwards under his hat and his thick mustache of the same color over his mouth. He was holding a black-leathered suitcase in his right hand and was accompanied by a small Delibird who was standing on his left.

"Hello, sir?" I said, hesitant. I stopped my descent on the last step, keeping a small distance between him and I.

"Ah, my apologies!" he said as if he had just realized something. "Of course, you probably don't know who I am, but I can assure you I know very well who _you_ are!"

"And to whom am I speaking?" I asked cautiously but politely.

"You can call me Harold, if you'd like," he answered. "But who I am matters not right now! I came on behalf of your father."

Who?

"You know my father?" I questioned, intrigued.

"Yes, son, I know him quite well!" he said. "In fact, I work with him!"

"What?" I gasped. "Who does he work for? Where is her right now?!"

"I'm sorry, son, but for your own safety I cannot tell you any of that," he told me. "I know he's been gone for quite some time now. Let's see… you were probably still a baby when you saw him last! Tell me, do you still remember what he looks like?"

"Of course, I do." I responded bluntly. "It's the only thing I know about him, what he looks like! All I can see is his face and his hair, the same color as mine, but nothing else. I don't even know what he sounds like, what he does, where he is, what he likes… if he loves me? If he loves me and my mom? Hell, I don't even want to talk about him with her because she always gets emotional. I don't want to make her go through this… I don't want her to be hurt or to feel sad. And don't call me _son_ , mister Harold or whatever. Don't pretend that you know me and don't try to make me think that my father cares about me, because he clearly doesn't."

I was sad and angry, but no tears came out of my eyes. My heart was pumping and I was breathing heavily. The man looked at me with compassion. He took off his hat and held it over his chest, revealing his balding head.

"I'm very sorry, Noah." said the old man. "I know it must be hard for you and your mother, probably just as hard or even more than it is for your father. But believe me, you two are the only things he ever thinks or talks about. Everything he does, he does it for you, to protect you. I really wish I could tell you what it is that he does, but you have to understand that for your own safety, it is better that way. There is one thing I can tell you for sure, though. Even if you can't see him, your father is always watching over you. If ever you get in trouble, he will come to protect you, no matter what. You can have my word for that. And don't worry, when the time is right, you'll learn the truth about your father, about everything, and that time might be sooner than you think…"

"Oh! I almost forgot!" he then suddenly blurted. "The reason for my visit!"

He put his hat back on his head and looked at his companion next to his leg.

"Delibird, could you please give the envelope to Noah?" he asked.

The little Pokémon stepped forward, then dug inside his tail until he found the letter and handed it out to me.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's nothing really," said the man. "Just a note from you father."

' _A note from my father?!'_ I thought. What was it about? Why would he give me that now of all times? And why after all these years?

"You may choose to open it or not, if you'd prefer," he continued. "You may be disappointed by its content, but it will eventually find its purpose."

"I don't understand…" I said.

"Don't worry," said the old man, trying to reassure me. "Soon, you will understand everything. You may have realized it already, but the world isn't quite like what it seems."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You are part of something much greater than yourself, Noah!" he said. "Take care of yourself!" As soon as he said those words, he took out a Pokéball from his pocket, from which emerged a Xatu. The Flying Pokémon spread his wings and began rising from the ground with a single flap. The little Delibird grabbed onto the man's leg, who then grabbed onto Xatu's foot, and all three of them flew away.

I took the envelope in both hands and closely inspected it. The words "To Noah" were written on the front side and an unfamiliar symbol was stamped with red ink on the top right corner. The opening on the other side was sealed in wax, shaped in the same logo as the stamp.

' _Could that be the logo of the organisation he works for?'_ I thought. Then, I noticed that the letter was quite thick to be just a simple note. There seemed to be something bigger and more rigid inside. This sudden package delivery surely piqued my curiosity, and I was really tempted to open it up. Maybe my father wanted to meet up with me? Perhaps he wanted to tell me about his work? Or the reason why he left? I really wanted to know what was inside… but I didn't open it. I put it inside my backpack and headed home.

"Good afternoon sweetie!" greeted my mother as I entered the house. "How did the competition go today!?"

She was in the kitchen attempting to cook some pasta, and Ditto was on the table cutting tomatoes for the sauce. For once, they seemed to be handling the cuisine fairly well.

"Oh, hey mom." I said, surprised to see her already back home. "Did you finish work earlier today?"

"Yes!" she replied, excited. "I asked my boss to get the evening off, and he accepted! We don't get to eat dinner together as often as I would like to, so I thought we could cook a little something up and enjoy it together… for once."

"Sounds great, mom." I said.

"So, tell me about your day! How did it go?" she asked, once more. I dropped off my bag in the living room and took out my Pokémon. We all joined her and Ditto in the kitchen and started helping them out with the cooking while I told her about today.

"No way, you won all of your matches! I'm so proud of you my son," she said as she dropped the cauldron to come and hug me, almost spilling all of the food. "It looks like you'll become a fine trainer, just like your father!"

Just like my father. When I heard those words, my mood suddenly changed.

"What do you mean 'like my father'?" I asked, irritated. My mother looked away, feeling uncomfortable.

"Well, you know." she started. "Your father, back in his younger days, he used to do a lot of battles. And- And he was pretty good at it, that's all."

"Why would I want to be like him?" I blurted resentfully. All of our Pokémon stopped what they were doing and stood still, in silence. My mother looked at me with teary eyes.

"Noah… I-"

"Forget it," I said. "I don't even want to talk about it." I put the bowls I was holding back on the counter, quickly grabbed my bag and headed straight to my room, loudly closing the door on my way in.

"Oh dear, what have I done… What have _we_ done?"

I threw my opened backpack on my bed, making all of my belongings fall out. I turned on my TV and changed the channel to the Pokémon Championship League. I was furious. I couldn't stop thinking about my father. I had to clear my mind.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. For tonight's show, the aspiring champion Eon Raddly will be attempting to claim the title he's been seeking for against the three-times defending champion Lora Lacroix!"

' _Great.'_ I thought out loud. This should be an interesting fight.

"For this event, these two magnificent trainers have each brought three of their strongest Pokémon to compete in a 'best out of three' match! Here are their two line-ups: Eon will be—be—be…"

' _What's going on?'_

"Fer—Fer—Ferrrrrrrrrrrr…"

The television seemed to be acting weirdly. The image was getting distorted, a buzzing sound took over the announcer's voice and then all of sudden, it turned off.

' _Oh, come on!'_

I got up from the floor and walked up to the screen, trying to see what was wrong with it.

' _You're brand new! Why the hell are you already breaking on me?'_

I gave the back of the monitor a few hits and pressed every single button, until it came back on.

' _That was weird…'_

I went to sit back down, but it turned off once again before I could do so.

' _Not again!'_ I yelled, slowly getting impatient. And then, a strange noise coming from outside startled me. When I turned around, my window was opened and the curtains were dancing with the wind. I went to close it back, thinking it must have been a Hoothoot or a Woobat, who always come and sing us their songs at night. And when I did, a cold… freezing breeze gently brushed my neck. And then, I felt a hand grabbing onto my shoulder. I quickly moved away from the window, swinging my arms around my head as if I was being chased by a swarm of bugs. Despite my effort to repel it, the weird sensation stuck to me like a curse, or a ghost clenching onto my back. So, I kept dancing and fighting to get it off me, until I collided with something and fell down. When I looked up, a dark shadow stood before me. It was a ghost with the shape of a human, but for some reason, it didn't scare me. The shadow offered me his hand to help me get back up, which confirmed that it didn't want to hurt me. As opposed to what I expected, my hand didn't slip right through his when I grabbed onto it, and it simply pulled me back up. We both just stood there for a while, looking at each other. I didn't know how to react or what to say.

"Wha- What are you?" I asked it, expecting a reply. But the shadow didn't seem able to speak. Although it did seem to comprehend what I just asked it. Instead of answering, it started walking and passed right through my body. The same cold and awkward feeling as before traversed my whole body. I turned around and found the ghost looking at my bed. It took the envelope that was given to me earlier by the strange man from among all the books laying around, and handed it out to me. Hesitant, I slowly grabbed it from its hand, and once I was finally holding it, I heard a loud banging sound coming from the corridor.

"Is everything alright, Noah?" asked my mother, who was knocking on my door.

"Yes, everything's fine Mom!" I yelled, but when I turned around the shadow wasn't there anymore.

'What the hell just happened?' I thought.

"Listen Noah," said my mother. "Could you come back with us? I'd like to talk about this. Come and have dinner with us, alright?"

"Ugh, sure. Just- Just give me a second." I said.

' _What could all this mean?'_ I asked myself. _'And where did it come from? I mean, it surely wasn't human, so then…wait.'_ It was a Pokémon. It all made sense. _'Back on the side of the window and when it passed through me to get to my bed, it must have been the move Shadow Sneak! But why did it come to my room? Maybe it was Harold's or my father's Pokémon trying to tell me to open the envelope…'_

"Noah?" shouted my mother from the kitchen.

"Yes! Yes, I'm coming," I screamed. I looked at the envelope one more time and put it in my pocket. Then I headed to the kitchen. My mother was already sitting down, a glass of wine in her hand, waiting for me with two bowls of pasta on the table and all of our Pokémon were already eating their food beside her.

"Come sit down," she said. "I think it's time we finally talk about it."

"Talk about what, Mom?" I asked her, annoyed. "What is there to talk about?"

"We both know what this is about," she replied. "We've been keeping this from you for a long time now, but I think you're old enough now to understand. Now, could you sit down and eat, please?"

Although I didn't really want to, I listened to her. I walked up to the table and sat down. I took my fork and started eating. _'That doesn't taste too bad…'_

"First of all," she started. "I'm really sorry that we had to make you go through all of this. When you were younger, I didn't want to talk about your father around you because I didn't want you to get hurt and to think that he abandoned you, because it is absolutely not the case."

"I mean, he did leave us just after I was born and gave me no sign of life since then. Wouldn't you consider that abandoning his child?" I said passive-aggressively.

"I know what it must look like to you, but he did this to protect you," she said.

"To protect me?" I laughed. "Where was he when I got bullied in elementary school because I didn't have a father? Or just the other day at the beginning of the school year, when I helped out a little kid but got beat up for it? Where was he to protect me then?"

"I'm so sorry you had to go through all this, I truly am," she apologised, as tears started appearing in her eyes. "But it's much more complicated than you think."

She paused to take some tissues and wash out her tears. She then took a mouth-full of pasta, finished her drink and poured herself another one.

"I told you earlier that your father was a great trainer," she continued. "Well, that wasn't completely true. To be completely honest with you, your father Leonard is amongst the greatest trainers in the whole world."

"What? What are you saying?" I asked, confused. "How is that possible? If that was the case, I would have seen him on TV or something…"

"He's not just like all the trainers you see competing in all those tournaments and competitions you watch," she said. "Your father is part of an international organisation that fights against criminals around the world in order to maintain peace. No one really knows who the members of the organisation are. They travel all around the world under different identities and try to remain anonymous to not be the center of attention on the medias. Noah, your father is part of the Elite 4."

~ End of Chapter 18 ~


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